Fools Rush In
by weebee
Summary: After failing to get the cure for the ultimate weakness moxibustion, Ranma leaves Nerima on his own in search of a cure. He makes it…. About ten kilometers, before getting into more trouble. He should've seen it coming. (Persona 5.)
1. Chapter 1: Ryuji's Bad Day 1

Fools Rush in… By JSB and Weebee.

Disclaimer: We don't own nuffin. Besides, Disclaimers don't even mean anything and if the great VIZ or ATLUS overlords wanted to sue us, they probably could. Not that it'd be worth any money. At this point it's just a formality.

Warning - This fic will contain spoilers for the plot of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 5. If you plan on playing it and care about spoilers, we suggest you avoid reading. Thank you, and happy reading.

Chapter 1: Ryuji's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day…# 1.

It was beeping again. Ranma frowned, ensuring that he was clear of the crosswalk of the busy Tokyo intersection and digging around in the pocket of the uncomfortable jeans he was wearing. He fished out the thin, flat-screened device inside, and with more than a little trepidation, he tapped the screen and squinted at the icons that popped up. "Fine, so what's wrong now?"

He noted that one icon, some sort of creepy looking eye thing, was pulsing red. As soon as he pressed it everything stopped. The pedestrians around him, the sound of traffic, even the wind. "...You need it, Ranma-kun, we have to be able to contact you. Nothing will go wrong," he mockingly growled, warily eyeing his surroundings. Then some… thing… seemed to appear in mid-air in the center of the square, a human like form solidifying out of blue light. "If I gotta smash this thing to fix the world, do I still owe 'em the deposit?"

The humanoid figure seemed to bulge outward at the sides, the blue light coalescing into tiny points that formed into wings on either side, red light growing in its center into what looked like two demonic looking eyes. The pigtailed martial artist took a couple of cautious steps backwards, before the image faded from the center out.

"Wait, is that me?" It sure looked like him, save the flat, yellow eyes and wide smirk. As though the question had been a signal, the indistinct figure before him vanished, welcoming back the sounds and motion of the world. While he stood, almost slack jawed at the experience a Salaryman bumped into his shoulder from behind. He staggered forward as if he'd been shoved full-force, almost falling down the station stairs before he grabbed a railing and stabilized himself. Throwing an irritated glare back at the man, who was too busy adjusting his tie to notice what he'd done, the martial artist jammed the phone back into his pocket and headed down the stairs.

"Whatever just happened, I don't like it." He said, coming to a stop and reluctantly pulling the phone back out of his pocket to look at. "How do I remove this thing" He prodded the screen with his finger in hopes of making something happen, with no result.

"Screw it, I give up." He sighed, once again, shoving the phone back in his pocket. He'd been saying that far too much lately.

Spotting a map of the local train system, he checked his current location against a scribbled note from another pocket, adjusting a small duffle bag on his shoulder and heading for another stairwell.

At least this place was fairly far from Nerima, so he'd probably only have to deal with his current complications, rather than his former ones.

Unless Ryoga showed up, that is. He smacked himself in the side of the head. It was probably a bad idea to tempt fate like that.

HR.

Ranma let the door to the small coffee shop close as he stepped in, moving up against one of the booths on the left side of the room to let two leaving customers past. "So, you Sakura-san?"

"Hmm?" The bearded man in a server's apron who was leaning against the counter in the middle of the room asked, looking up at him. "Oh, you're here." Ranma got the feeling that the guy thought that was a bad thing. Sighing, he straightened. "Yeah, I'm Sojiro Sakura. I'll be taking care of you for the next year."

He looked Ranma over, taking note of the beaten up second-hand jeans and T-shirt. "I was wondering what kind of kid they'd send me. So you're it, huh?"

A sharp response bubbled up in Ranma's throat, but he choked it down. "Yeah, I guess," he said instead.

Sojiro just kept looking at him for another few seconds before waving him forward, turning and heading for the stairs on the other side of the shop from the door. Ranma followed him in silence until they reached the second floor, a large, single room with a bed shoved into one corner, seemingly every other surface occupied with dusty junk or cloth sheets. "This is where you'll be staying," the older man said, gesturing in a half circle with his right hand. "So, what do you think?"

"It's fine," Ranma said, eyeing the large boxes in the middle of the floor irritably. Truthfully, it was. He'd slept in much worse places, at least there was a roof, but… "Don't suppose I could get some help movin' stuff out?"

"Nope," Sojiro replied. "I've got some sheets for the bed, but other than that cleaning up here's your responsibility. That won't be a problem, will it?" The look in his eye suggested that it had better not be.

"No," Ranma sighed. "Not a problem." So much for getting some space to practice.

"Good," Sojiro nodded. "I'll be locking up soon. You'll be alone here at night, but that's no reason to be stupid, got it? You're already on probation, so don't push your luck."

"Look, buddy, I…" Ranma started before he could stop himself.

Sojiro barked out a short laugh. "So, you can say more than three words. Yeah, I know what happened, and I'm pretty sure you're not going to steal from me or anything, or I wouldn't be letting you stay here at all. Honestly, though, what you did do's almost as bad. I'm sure you thought you were being a big hero, but all you actually were was a pain in the ass, and this place doesn't need the attention."

"...Yeah, right." Ranma just nodded. There was no point in yelling about it again. "I got ya."

Sojiro grunted. "We'll be heading for Shujin tomorrow to get you registered." Turning, he headed back down the stairs.

"Yeah, great," Ranma said again. "I sound like a broken record." Grabbing ahold of one of the bags from the pile in the corner, he tried to jerk it into the air as hard as he could, and nothing happened. "Damned old freak…" He muttered, starting to get to work on the stuff he could clean up.

HR.

"Hmmahem!" Ranma sighed, turning around to face the clearing throat.

"Yeah?" He asked, staring at Sojiro levelly, eyes briefly flicking to the glass of water in the older man's hand.

"Could you…" Sojiro made a half-circle gesture, his expression trying to twitch out of neutrality into something else.

Ranma frowned, but flexed his arm, pushing himself into the air and out of the hand stand he'd been in.

"Gymnastics?" Sojiro asked.

"Martial arts," Ranma glanced nervously at the glass again, then back at Sojiro, seeing the man's failing attempts at a straight face. "You wanna see the curse."

"It is kind of…. Improbable."

Ranma didn't say anything, just reaching out for the glass, which Sojiro handed over and splashing it over his face and head in one smooth motion.

"...but apparently possible," Sojiro continued his previous thought, his expression having completely lost the fight and clearly showing amazement and curiosity. "So… are you half-irish?" He blurted.

"Am I.. what?" Ranma asked. She'd never heard that one before. "I turn into a girl and lose half a foot of height, and that's your question?"

"The red hair is really distracting...Nevermind!." Sojiro said, turning around on his heel. "Make sure you go to sleep. I'm not gonna be responsible if you make yourself sick from staying up too late." The man then headed down the stairs, without another word.

"...Huh."

HR.

Ranma awoke to the sound of dripping water, and cold steel pressing into his back. Groaning, he sat up, hearing the rattling of chains from his hands as he stretched them forward. By that point, he wasn't really surprised to see the bars of a cell in front of him. "So, they just decided to throw me in here anyhow, huh?" He muttered to himself, swinging his feet over the edge of the bed. When he caught sight of the giant iron ball on the floor next to the bed, one eyebrow raised. "Seriously?" The damned thing looked even bigger than the ones his old man had chained to his feet for training.

The bars of his cell rang out as something struck them, a small girl wearing a blue uniform and an eyepatch stared at him from the other side. In her hands was a black baton, which she slapped threateningly against her open palm, again and again.

"Wake up Inmate!"

"Y'know, you could've woke me up before tossin' me in here," Ranma grumbled, standing and staggering towards the bars. Looking beyond his cell, he noticed that his was one of many, circling around the room. Each one had a metal number nailed into the wall above. At the center of the room was a simple desk with a lamp. Also, he noted that the room was very blue.

"Don't question us!" The girl barked, slamming the baton against the bars and producing the ringing noise again.

"Girls, girls," A man's voice came from the room outside, deep and somehow unsettling. Ranma squinted against the bright light, resolving features of a silhouette sitting behind a desk. Pointed ears, a long, tapering nose and bulging eyes, sunken cheeks and a couple tufts of hair poking out from the sides of his head.

"Great," Ranma mumbled, "I've been locked up by the old freak's lankier cousin." He paused slightly. "With a large tumor on his face."

"Inmate! You will show our master respect!" The girl barked.

"Maybe if you woke me up before bringing me here. Going back on the deal when I haven't even done anythin' to deserve it is a great way to get my respect." Ranma countered, already fed up.

"No, no, you misunderstand," The man said, clasping and unclasping his hands in front of his face. "This place has nothing… well, very little… to do with your dealings with the police. This is the Velvet Room"

"Sounds expensive," Ranma interjected dryly.

Without missing a beat, the man continued, "A place between dream and reality, mind and matter. Only those bound by a contract may enter."

Ranma sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, the chains clanking and rattling as he moved his hands, "Look, if my old man cut a deal with you, I don't have time to deal with that right now."

The man chuckled. "Hmm, so you're acting the rebel already? I thought all that had been beaten out of you. Perhaps your rehabilitation will be easier than I thought?"

"Rehabilitation?" Ranma asked, leaning against the bars and trying to look as casual as he could manage with his hands chained together. "Isn't that kinda the opposite of rebelling?"

"Not if you're being rehabilitated towards freedom," the man said, unclasping his arms and gesturing.

Ranma raised his index finger to make a comment, and then lowered it, not finding a counter.

"It's important that this rehabilitation be successful, for the fate of the world," The man said, ignoring Ranma's attempted interjection. "We are here to assist you with that. I am Igor, and the two before you are Caroline, to your right, and Justine, to your left."

Ranma's head whipped around and he almost jumped a little. He hadn't even noticed the other eye-patched kid on his left side, the loudmouth had kind of grabbed his attention.

"Can I ask one question?" Ranma asked, looking back at The Nose.

"You may."

"Why do you have children running a jail?" Ranma eyed both girls as he asked, waiting for the angry one to explode at him.

"We're fully capable of our jobs!" Caroline yelled, not disappointing. "If you don't believe me, just try to escape!"

The other gave a sharp sideways glance. "I assure you, we will do our jobs as your wardens perfectly well, both in disciplining and assisting."

"...right… assisting," Ranma was about to make further commentary, when a loud ringing sound tore through the room.

"It seems it's time for you to go," The Nose said. "You will be back later, but for now, simply live your life."

"Yeah… I'll do that," Ranma said slowly as the world seemed to fade around him.

HR.

-SLAM!-

"...ow." Ranma mumbled to himself, untangling from the mass of blanket he found himself in on the floor and glaring up at the couch he'd been sleeping on. He kind of missed his futon.

Looking around and blinking at the light streaming in from the window, he sighed. It'd been a dream, which was probably good since it meant he hadn't just been tossed into jail with a crazy man, though it also meant he was back where he'd started.

Standing, he stretched and staggered over to his duffle bag, shuffling through it for a change of clothes.

"So, you're awake." Ranma looked over to see Sojiro standing at the top of the stairs. "We'll be heading over to your school today. It's over in Aoyama, The train ride'll cost a bit and the transfers are a pain, but today, I'll drive you in."

"Uh, thanks," Ranma winced. He barely had any money in his wallet at the moment.

"Yeah, be grateful," Sojiro continued. "I normally don't let a guy into my passenger seat."

"I could get some cold water and fix that pretty easily, y'know," Ranma deadpanned.

"Cold wa- Oh… uh…" Sojiro twitched. "Kid, it was a joke, okay?"

"Yeah, I know."

Sojiro twitched again, and then frowned. "Come on." He turned, heading down stairs.

HR.

"To reiterate, just so we're clear…" Ranma desperately tried to keep his face straight as yet another person told him how much he had to keep out of trouble. This had been the third time he'd heard this… today… and twice had been from the bald, overweight man who was slouching over the desk the new student was standing in front of. "...only school in the city which would accept you, including your old school. That madhouse, Furinkan."

"Yes sir, I understand," he said, one hand clenched into a fist, hidden between his and Sojiro's bodies.

"I mean, really, Furinkan denied you? That school doesn't really have the scores to pick and choose their students." The female teacher standing next to the principal commented, her arms crossed over the front of her bright yellow, striped shirt.

"Me and the principal didn't exactly see eye to eye, and he probably thought what happened was a good excuse to kick me out." Ranma tried to explain, flicking his pigtail with a finger.

"...Ah… that makes sense," The overweight man leaned forward over his desk. "I hope you realize, however, that the kind of behavior that Furinkan takes as normal will not be tolerated here."

"Yeah," Ranma nodded.

"Excuse me?" The man's eyes narrowed.

"Yes sir," Ranma corrected, his fist clenching again.

"Now, there's something else here," The man brandished the sheaf of papers he'd been waving a few times previously in the long rant thinly disguised as a conversation. "Something about… trans-sexuality, or an intersexed condition, or…"

"It's… not exactly that," Ranma sighed, picking up a pitcher of water the principal kept at the side of his desk and sloshing some of it over his hand and arm.

"What are you-" The objection caught in the bald man's throat as Ranma's form changed. Everyone just stared in shock for a few seconds, before Ranma put a stop to it.

"I've been told the hair is really distracting."

"Well it is," Sojiro muttered.

"Compared to the rest of the changes?" The teacher asked hysterically.

"That's what I said," Ranma agreed.

"Aham!" The principal obnoxiously interrupted, trying to look composed. "Well, I… I suppose we can't hold this against you… though perhaps it's for the best that we preemptively arranged to exempt you from the gym classes due to your… condition." He turned to the teacher. "Now, this is Ms. Kawakami, she will be your homeroom teacher. In the future, please bring any concerns to her."

The frizzy brown haired woman threw a panicked look to her superior, before taking a deep breath. "I'm Sadayo Kawakami. Here's your student ID." Her voice was very flat. Ranma frowned, worried that she was going to faint or something. "Please read the school rules, any violation will send you directly to the guidance office."

'And that's four,' Ranma thought to herself, tuning out at least three more dire warnings about what would happen if she stepped a toe out of line, before Ms. Kawakami spoke again.

"Come to the faculty office when you arrive at school tomorrow. I'll show you to your classroom."

"Yeah, thanks," Ranma muttered as she and Sojiro turned to leave.

"That kid has some attitude problems." The Principal stated after the two visitors left.

HR.

"So," Sojiro started, sitting at the wheel of his car. "I take it that I don't need to lecture you anymore, yeah?"

"It'd be a real big favor if you didn't," Ranma said, glaring out the window.

"Yeah, just don't punch me alright?" Sojiro started his car, shifting gears immediately into reverse to pull out.

"Wouldn't hurt even if I tried," Ranma shrugged. At an inquisitive grunt, her glare out the window got worse. "Old pervert used some ancient moxibustion trick to seal my strength. Couldn't hurt a baby, literally."

"You… punched a baby?" Sojiro asked flatly.

"It was an accident, okay?"

"And you expect me to believe all this?" Sojiro's voice was still flat.

"Red hair."

Sojiro twitched. "Stop that."

"Hey, at least I'm allowed to sit in the seat now, right?" Ranma cracked a smile. She was gaining an advantage, however small it might have been.

"...Not saying a word." With that, the bearded man quickly flipped on the radio, searching for a good station to listen to while ignoring his passenger. After a few minutes of listening to smooth jazz, the radio station was interrupted, bringing an important message.

"Again, a subway has derailed at Shibuya Station, greatly affecting the timetable all across-"

"Another Accident?"

"What do you mean another?" Ranma asked, not having heard of the first.

"They've been all over the news in the last few months," Sojiro explained. "I… guess you haven't really been in a position to watch it, huh?"

"Yeah, I've been busy."

"Well, that probably means there's gonna be a lot of traffic. Going to be a long drive." The bearded man sighed, fixing his hat.

"Why're cars a good thing again?" Ranma asked, turning to glare out the window once more.

HR.

Ranma woke to the dim light of early morning streaming through the window, and the loud noises of clinking glasses and shuffling from the floor below. Blinking bleary eyes up at the ceiling, he wondered if Sojiro had forgotten he was up here, or was doing it deliberately. ...Probably the latter, he decided, rolling slightly sideways right off the edge of the couch. With a loud slam, he hit the wooden floor, barely missing one of the covered objects that littered the attic. Grunting in irritation, he hauled himself to his feet.

"That better not keep happening." He muttered to himself, quickly straightening the blankets on the couch and getting dressed. Heading downstairs, he muttered "Mornin'," to Sojiro, standing behind the counter.

The older man looked him over and frowned. "Are you going to school?"

Ranma blinked. The previous night, Sojiro had told him that he had free rein to do what he wanted within the law, but… "Didn't know that was a choice."

"It isn't," Sojiro scowled. "Where's your uniform?"

"...right," The pigtailed martial artist winced, "that." Turning, he headed back upstairs, pulling the thing from where he'd stuffed it into his duffle bag and squinting at it. It was far fancier than Furinkan's standard blue jacket and pants, even having a school symbol over one side of the jacket, though the strangest parts, to him, were the plaid pants and suspenders. The thing was not going to be fun in a fight, but he guessed the school rules probably made it mandatory. Changing clothes quickly, he tugged the thing so that it fell sort of straight, and headed back down.

Sojiro gave the wrinkled jacket a disgusted look, but apparently decided not to comment, instead putting a plate on the counter and ladling steaming rice, then curry, onto it. "Here, be sure to eat it quick, before the customers start arriving."

"Got it," Ranma nodded, stepping over to the counter and picking up the spoon that sat next to the plate. Twenty seconds later, he put the spoon down, the plate cleaned. "Thanks."

"Wh… What the hell was that?!" Sojiro was glaring at him. Previously he'd been snappish or rude, but this was the first time Ranma had seen him genuinely angry.

"Ya told me to eat it fast," He replied, shrugging.

"I didn't mean… You've got to savour the taste, you can't do… -THAT- to a good plate of curry!" Sojiro objected, picking up the empty plate grumpily.

"Make up your mind, eat fast or slow," Ranma complained, spinning around and getting off the stool.

"Just… get out of here," Sojiro seemed calmer, though he still waved the martial artist away. Just as Ranma was reaching for the door, he called, "Oh, and can you flip the sign back to open while you're out there?"

"Yeah, I got it," Ranma waved back, stepping through the door.

HR.

"Okay, so… down here," Ranma mumbled, glancing down the street outside of the station. Getting through the transfers themselves had been kind of daunting, but at this point he thought he was probably on the right track. All he had to do now was… He stopped, feeling a drop of water land on top of his head. Looking up, he winced at the cloud covered sky and bolted for a nearby store with a wide awning, making it just before the rain really got started.

A couple of seconds later, a figure in a hooded coat ran past him, turning in to lean against the store next to him.

Glancing over, he saw her fold back the hood, letting out a sigh of relief. He was about to say something, probably about how much a pain in the ass the rain was, when the phone in his uniform pocket beeped… again.

Reaching for it, he squinted at the screen, where that red application icon was blinking again. He considered just ignoring it, but then, he wasn't sure what it'd do if he didn't acknowledge it. Tapping the icon, it expanded to fill most of the screen, revealing an interface he couldn't make heads or tails of. Deciding to cut his losses, he tapped the home button at the bottom of the screen, and nothing happened. "Great…" he muttered, jamming the device into his pocket to deal with later as the sound of a car pulling to a stop in front of him impinged on his awareness.

The window rolled down, and an older man leaned out. "Good morning, Do you want me to give you a ride to school? You're gunna be late."

"Um, sure. Thank you," the girl beside him said, stepping forward onto the curb and climbing into the passenger seat..

"You need a lift too?" The man asked, looking Ranma up and down.

Ranma glanced up at the sky, then shook his head. "I'm good." He almost immediately regretted the decision, as the girl's expression immediately fell when the window started rolling up.

"That's not a good sign." Ranma noted. His suspicions were deepened as a blond boy ran past stumbling to a halt in front of him and glaring after the car.

"Damnit! Screw that pervert teacher!"

"Pervert Teacher?" Ranma asked, frowning.

"Huh?" The boy turned, stepping up into Ranma's personal space and glaring at him. The guy was obviously trying to look tough, from his dyed, spiked hair to the yellow shirt with a star symbol and some english gibberish on it under his jacket. "What do you want?"

Ranma just shrugged, this making the blond boy even more irritated.

"You plannin' on rattin' me out to Kamoshida?"

"So the Pervert Teacher's Kamoshida?" Ranma asked, a sinking feeling starting in his stomach.

"Yeah," The other boy nodded. "That guy in the car just now. Does whatever the hell he wants! Who does he think he is, the king of the castle?"

"...He don't run down the halls stealin' panties or something, does he?" Ranma asked, crossing the fingers on one hand.

The blond's expression abruptly changed to a wide grin, and he laughed. "It honestly wouldn't surprise me. Probably goes along with that stupid mask tied under his nose and everything!"

"That's just great. Escape one for another." The Pig-tailed boy muttered to himself. "And this one's got a castle."

"The castle bit's just an expression," the other boy waved that off, looking Ranma over critically. "But hey, so you don't know Kamoshida? Gotta be new to the school, right?"

"Yeah, that's right," Ranma replied, a little surprised by the boy's forthrightness.

"Then no wonder you don't know him," the other boy muttered under his breath, before abruptly changing the subject and looking a bit friendlier. "This rain ain't too bad, we'd better hurry up or we'll be late."

"Yeah, ain't too bad," Ranma winced, glaring up at the clouds.

"C'mon, new guy, I'll show you the…" The blond boy cut himself off, staggering slightly. Ranma abruptly experienced a sense of vertigo himself, but didn't stumble as he was standing still. "Ah, my head hurts… Damnit, I wanna go home..." the other boy complained.

Shaking that off, he stepped forward a few feet, turning back when he realized that Ranma wasn't following. "Well, c'mon, I'll show you where the school is!" He called, waving his hand forward.

Ranma took another quick glare up at the sky, before holding his bag over his head and starting after the blond as quickly as he could. "Dude," the other boy laughed. "It's just rain, you ain't gunna melt."

"Easy for you to say," Ranma complained, He was not going to show up for the first day at his new school as a girl. "Let's just hurry up, alright?"

"Yeah, whatever," the other boy waved him off, ducking down a side alley, Ranma following.

"Whaaa…." The boy yelped as he got to the end of the alley, stumbling to a halt. Jogging up next to him, Ranma blinked, surveying the massive medieval castle before them. Not quite believing what he was seeing, he rubbed his eyes with his free hand to make sure he wasn't hallucinating. He wasn't. It was still a castle.

"I thought the castle bit was just an expression?"

"It was!" The blond boy yelled back, looking around rapidly. "This is the right place, though… isn't it? ...Yeah."

"Better than Furinkan, huh?" Ranma questioned, rolling his eyes. "Well, we may as well get in out of the rain."

"What is with you and the rain?" The blond boy asked, "There's a castle where the school should be!"

Ranma didn't respond, stepping forward towards the building. With a grunt of frustration, the other boy followed him.

As the two crossed the threshold into the castle, their surroundings seemed to fade for a moment, revealing the entry hall of the school, but then quickly shifted back to the way they had been.

"W-was that the school?" The blond boy stammered, his eyes looking a little wild.

"How should I know? I've only been here once." Ranma answered, shaking the water off of his bag and looking around the entry hall. The place was heavily decorated, with red curtains hanging from the ceiling, a couple of very expensive looking chandeliers, and more than a few candelabras. Also at the very end of the entryway was a large painting of that teacher with the car depicted in knightly armor. For a moment, he caught himself estimating the candlesticks for value…for reasons.

The other boy didn't respond, instead pulling his phone out of his pocket, tapping its screen. "Damn, no reception, where are we?"

Ranma jolted. "Hey, that's right." He pulled out his own phone. "That… program thing showed up again, maybe it did this?"

"Are you serious?" The other boy snorted. "How can a phone app…" He trailed off as he got a look at the screen, which showed an unusual red and white interface, the words "Kamoshida's Castle" resting in its center.

"Holy shit, it is-" The blond boy was cut off as the sound of metallic footfalls resounded through the room, two heavily armored figures carrying swords and shields stepping through the doors on either side.

"Knights in armor. Huh," Ranma tilted his head. "Hey, Ms. Kawakami, that you in one o' those things?"

"I... don't think Kawakami could pull that off," the other boy said, backing slowly away from the two hulking knights. They stepped forward as he moved, one lifting and brandishing its sword. "These guys mean business, we gotta run!"

The two boys turned, bolting towards the door, when two more armored figures appeared through it. Ranma knew that he could slide between them fairly easily, but doubted that the blond had such ability. Sliding to a stop, they glanced around for another way out, but weren't given a chance as one of the knights approaching from behind slammed his shield into the other boy, sending him stumbling to the floor.

"What the hell?!" He barked, obviously in pain. "You could've broke something! What's with you…" he was interrupted by another knight bringing the side of his blade down on the back of his head.

Ranma responded without thinking, letting a punch fly at the nearest knight's faceplate. Unfortunately, his fist simply stopped when it connected. He growled under his breath, leaping clear of the circle of enemies before the retaliatory shield bash could catch him.

He was about to make a run for it when he saw one knight quite deliberately raise his blade up over the blond boy's body, point down. Courses of action flashed through his mind, but all of them were pretty much crap. He could still run, assuming that these guys were bluffing, but even if he did he wasn't sure where he was or what he could do about anything. Attacking wasn't an option, either, obviously. Slumping his shoulders, he glared at the closest knight as he walked back to them. "Fine, I get it." His only response was a sword to the back of his own head, which slammed him to the floor, but didn't actually knock him out.

Faking unconsciousness, he took careful note of the turns the guards made after hoisting him over one's shoulder like a sack of potatoes, hearing the sounds of several rusty doors opening, and at least one chain bridge. When the final door opened, he was dumped unceremoniously onto a floor. Which was, of course, covered with a shallow layer of water. After the other boy had also been dumped, the two armored figures stepped away and a metal gate slammed closed.

Opening her eyes, Ranma quickly got up, glancing around the small, dingy stone cell the two had been dumped in. It seemed to be extremely simple, without windows, simply a room cut into the rock with bars for a wall. Stepping up to said bars, she glanced around, noting that the guards hadn't stayed to watch the prisoners. These guys were running a fairly shoddy operation.

The lock on the door looked simple, too. Unfortunately, she was fairly sure she didn't have anything on her that she could pick it with. "Great…" she muttered, walking back and slumping down on the small bunk in the corner of the room. "This ain't how I figured my first day here would go down… but I'm not sure why I'm surprised. Wonder if this guy pretends his haircuts are beheadings or somethin'?"

"I told ya I'm not fixin' my hair!" The blond boy yelled, bolting upright. "Wait, wha…" His expression quickly faded from irritation to confusion. "Where the hell am I? And why am I wet?"

"In a jail cell. In the school?" Ranma shrugged.

"This don't look like any jail I've seen before," the blond objected, slowly sitting up and looking around. "Hey, wait a minute…. Who the eff are you?!"

Ranma raised an eyebrow, "The eff?..."

"Yeah, who are you? Why are we in here?" The boy demanded. ""Is someone gunna let us out, or what?"

"That's kinda hard to-" Ranma was cut off by the sound of a blood curdling scream from down the hall. "Ah yes. Just what I signed up for, medieval torture."

The blond gulped and looked over at a set of rusty chains hanging from the side wall of the cell. "Crap, I came here with another guy… I think, what if that was him?"

"It wasn't," Ranma retorted, moving over to the door. "You got a piece of metal? Long and thin?"

"Not on me, but maybe in my bag," The boy answered, searching his pockets anyway just to be sure. "You still haven't told me who you are."

The redhead rubbed her forehead. "Believe it or not, I'm the guy you came into school with."

"Umm…. bull," The boy said flatly, as he rummaged through his schoolbag.

Ranma growled under her breath. "Ancient chinese curse. I was hopin' I could keep it secret and keep school fairly low key, but…" She gestured around. "So much for that plan."

"Right," The blond boy said, "Still think you're nuts, but…. Do you hear that?"

Ranma frowned. She definitely did. The sound of armored boots hitting stone, and the creaking of an iron gate. "Someone's coming."

A moment later, one of the castle's armored guards stomped up to the cell, glaring in at them from under his helmet. "Your punishment has been decided upon," he intoned. "The charge is unlawful entry. Thus, you will be sentenced to death."

"Say what?" The boy demanded, angrily.

The guards didn't respond, instead stepping slightly sideways to allow for the passage of…. Someone so strange looking that even Ranma found herself blinking. The crown and red, heart-embroidered cape, in and of themselves, weren't too strange, given the location. The fact that his feet were clad in flip flops, he had glowing yellow eyes, and there was a disconcerting amount of skin visible under the thing when he moved, on the other hand. "No one is allowed to do as they pl-"

"Are you just wearin' underwear under that thing?"

"Did you just interrupt -ME-? The King?!" The robed man demanded, angrily.

"Yeah?" Ranma tilted her head.

"As I was saying!" The man looked away from her, as if trying to ignore her, "You can't just do as you please in my castle, and that includes disrespecting the king!"

The boy leaned in closer to the bars. "Well I didn't vote for you…. Hey wait, Kamashida?"

"That isn't how monarchy works," The robed man said, his voice practically dripping with condescension. "But then I shouldn't be surprised, Ryuji Sakamoto. First you don't pay attention in any of your classes, and now you're sneaking around as a petty thief."

"Hey, we didn't steal anything!" Ranma objected.

"Ah, and your little friend," Kamashida took a moment to glare over at her. "Because you don't even have the guts to do this by yourself."

"Say that again without these bars in the way!" Ryuji growled.

The robed manh stepped back, gesturing at the cell door. "All right, I think I will, as I watch your execution!"

The guards behind him stepped forward, one sliding the door open. Ryuji immediately shot forward, slamming his shoulder into the armored figure's side and knocking it back. "C'mon, we gotta get outta-" he was cut off as a second of the knights smashed the dull edge of his blade against his side, forcing him to the ground.

Ranma, for her part, had prepared to run and actually made it out of the cell, but froze when the boy went down. "Go, get outta here!" He yelled, just before Kamoshida kicked him hard in the side.

The redhead took a half step forward, before freezing again. Her eyes flicked around, looking for anything she could do, but there was nothing. Without her strength, she was in the exact same situation as in the main hall.

"Heh, looks like bringing your friend wasn't much use after all," Kamoshida laughed, kicking Ryuji again. "Look at her, she's so scared that she can't even decide if she should run or stay!"

"Get out of- Gah, goddamnit!" Ryuji groaned as another kick landed in his side.

"Stop it, you're nuts!" Ranma yelled. Without thinking, she leapt forward, covering ground too quickly for the armored knights to react in time. One perfectly executed punch flew into the side of the robed king's head and stopped dead.

"Was that supposed to do anything?" He asked, as armored gauntlets closed around both of her shoulders and she found herself shoved back into a wall. The man began to chuckle, before it burst into a full laugh. "-THAT- was the best you could do? I would be angry at you daring to assault one such as I, the king, if it weren't so pathetic. Don't worry, though… you did something. You bought this equally pathetic worm a few more seconds of life."

As Kamoshida stepped back and one of the knights raised his blade over Ryuji's head, He raised one arm weakly. "Look, you got me, Okay? Good joke, but it's gone far enough…" His voice was shaking slightly now. "Just… stop, okay?"

"I don't hear anyone laughing," Kamoshida said, making a sharp downward gesture.

Ranma's focus narrowed to the distance between the blade and the boy under it, her struggles redoubling despite the fact that they were useless, until… Everything stopped. The world around her seemed to freeze, most of the color draining out of it as a glowing butterfly flew past her left ear.

"This is truly an unjust game… Your chances of winning are almost none." A soft, feminine voice seemed to whisper in her ear. "But if my voice is reaching you, there may yet be a possibility open to you."

Another voice spoke out to her, still seemingly a woman's, but different from the last. "So, are you just going to sit and watch? Wait for your chance and run? Wouldn't be hard." the voice was deeper, almost mocking where the first had been compassionate and warm. "You can just forget about him, right? Just like you forgot about everyone else."

"I… I didn't," She tried to say, but the memory silenced her. The quiet, shameful walk out of Nerima, the tiny pack with the only belongings he could carry over his shoulder. Akane had offered to go with him, to join him on his search for a cure, but he'd refused. He'd been afraid everyone would chase him if they knew where he was going.

"You can just move on again. You're used to that. I wouldn't blame you, I've done it before." He hadn't even made it out of the Tokyo area, Happosai's stupid cackling had barely faded… when he'd screwed up, again.

"Are you just going to give up, again? Accept defeat after defeat?" She still remembered how the woman had looked at him. When she told the police that this random kid had jumped and attacked her employer. He couldn't have hurt a fly, but no one was going to take his word over hers and that of an important politician.

"Or, will you try to win, despite the odds. Savor the sweet taste of victory once more?" The blade still gleamed, frozen in time over Ryuji's neck. "After all, Ranma Saotome never loses, right?"

"Never when it counts." And for the first time in months, Ranma grinned.

As if the words were a signal, the world began moving again, a wave of force knocking the two guards away from Ranma, who leaned forward slightly, an ornately carved silvery mask appearing over her eyes. "I am thou, and thou art I." The words rang in her head, and she knew, almost instinctively, what to do.

"What?" The robed king demanded, as the knight who had been about to stab Ryuji stopped in place. "Well, if you wanted to die first that badly..."

Ranma ignored this, reaching up to grasp both sides of the mask and pulled with all of her might. She felt like she was pulling her skull apart. By rights she shouldn't have the strength. Even so, she continued. She screamed, almost falling to her knees as the pain nearly overwhelmed her. When the mask came free with a wet tearing noise, small rivulets of blood flowing down the side of her face, she looked up at the king with her now yellow, defiant eyes.

"...the hell?" Ryuji breathed, shuffling backwards away from the knights as quickly as he could.

"Come, Chevalier d'Éon!" The redhead yelled, blue light exploding from her eyes, moving to engulf the rest of her body, brightening until she was difficult to look at. Once it had become pure white, it burst apart into hundreds of tiny shapes, flower petals which wrapped Ranma's body. The petals then swirled around it, leaving darkness in their wake, reforming behind her into a looming figure. What emerged from the darkness was Ranma, now decked out in a black gi, wrapped hands and feet, a hood and facemask. Behind her floated...

"Is… is that a fairy?"

"I am Chevalier d'Éon," the figure behind Ranma announced. "I am the rebel's soul that resides within you. I will grant you my sword to fend off this crisis, if you so chose."

"Yeah," Ranma clenched one covered fist. "Let's do it."

"As you wish. Now show them what we can do!" Ranma launched herself forward again, as Kamoshida turned and bolted down the hall. One of the knights moved to meet her, his armor seeming to melt off. Ranma was expecting a lot of things when the creature reformed in a red and black swirl. What she wasn't expecting was a pumpkin, wearing a pointy hat, a robe, and carrying a lantern.

She blinked, and looked over at the blond boy taking cover behind a nearby crate. The boy looked back with a bewildered expression and shrugged. That was almost her last mistake as the thing swung its lantern, sending a ball of fire barrelling at her position. Leaping over it, she focused on the slitted eyes cut out of the thing. If there was a vulnerable part, that would probably be- She was interrupted from her pondering as an épée stabbed past her ear and into the opening, causing the creature to dissolve into a dark cloud.

"So, that was cool." Ranma noted, turning to face the other two knights. "So who's next?"

They turned to each other, and then one morphed into another pumpkin wizard, while the other sprinted away from the cell. Ranma shrugged, moving in on the pumpkin but was forced back by another fireball.

She reached backwards, grabbing a small knife that was nestled at the small of her back before frowning. She couldn't throw it with enough force to really do anything, so closing in was her only option, even though the thing looked like it was ready to keep throwing those fireballs and she didn't want any to go wide and hit Ryuji's crate. Finding her hand stretching forward anyways, she heard herself yell "Eiha," and a bolt of dark energy flew past her head, slamming into the wizard and tossing it several feet back before it vanished in a puff of smoke.

"Holy Shit dude, the eff was that?" Ryuji yelled, springing out of his hiding place.

"I've…Got no idea," Ranma admitted, the dark gi and hood she was wearing fading away to reveal the school uniform. "We should probably get outta here, though. Those guys who ran off probably sounded the alarm."

The blond boy looked at her incredulously. "How can you be so calm about this?! You just summoned a fairy to stab a pumpkin wizard!"

"Y'know, when you say it like that…It's pretty weird," Ranma admitted. "Still gotta get outta here, though."

"Wait, we've got to find the guy I was brought in here with first," Ryuji objected.

Ranma sighed. "Like I said before, that was me. It's an ancient curse triggered by water temperature. It's why I was tryin' to avoid the rain so much."

"Oh," The boy said, flatly. "Given what else I've seen today…I'll take that. Let's get outta here."

HR.

"I… dunno if we're gettin' anywhere, other than more lost," Ryuji mumbled, as he followed Ranma through a small tunnel that lead between two of the massive, cell-filled rooms that seemed to make up a large part of the castle.

"Yeah, well, unfortunately we're not gettin' you across that drawbridge back there," Ranma shrugged. "So we've gotta hope there's another way…"

"Maybe a way to get those guys out of those cages over the river back there, too," Ryuji shuddered. "The eff's Kamoshida doing here?"

"Hey, you two! Over here!" Both students looked around cautiously, having expected a few guards to come back this way by now. "No, down here!" The high pitched voice came again.

"Is that… a talking plush cat?" Ryuji asked, pointing at one of the nearby cells.

"Oh good. Only a plush." Ranma said, sighing with a hint of relief.

"...what's that supposed to mean?" Ryuji asked, as the two made their way over to it, a black and white stuffed animal who seemed to be trying to shake the bars to its cell.

"You're not soldiers from the castle right? Get me out of here!" the thing demanded, its large eyes somehow blinking. "The key's hanging right next to the door, come on!"

"I dunno, Ryuji said, picking up the indicated keyring. "This guy looks way more like one of those things that attacked us than a prisoner."

"If I were, would I be locked in here?" The cat demanded, huffing and crossing his arms over his chest.

"You know, the plushie makes a good point." Ranma noted, scratching her chin in thought.

"Are you listening to yourself?" The blond demanded, irritably. "We don't have time for this, the guards could be here any second!"

The cat nodded. "Right, so you should let me out! You can't just leave me here."

"Jeeze," Ryuji muttered, though his complaint was interrupted by the sound of booted feet running by from somewhere deeper in the building. "We gotta get out of here, if we can figure out how… Where's the GPS when ya need it?"

"If you let me out, I can show you where the exit is!" The cat plush said, quickly.

"Well, he probably knows what's goin' on here better than we do," Ranma offered.

"Or he's all talk and just going to attack us when we open the door," Ryuji countered.

The small creature seemed to swell up indignantly. "Hey! I never go back on my word! But if you want to try and get out of here without me, be my guests."

"Whadda we do?" Ryuji asked, looking around nervously as more footfalls could be heard nearby.

"Better than having the blind lead the blind, I guess." Ranma shrugged.

"Then hurry up, they're coming," the plushie hissed.

"Yeah, yeah, workin' on it," Ryuji grumbled, opening the lock quickly. As the creature stepped out, he continued, "Now hurry up and tell us where the exit is, monster cat!"

"I'm not a cat!" The plushie yelled.

"Y-yeah, it's not really much of a cat," Ranma agreed, an odd catch in her voice.

"My name is Morgana," the creature continued, glaring at Ryuji.

"Right, Morgana, whatever, can we-" Ryuji was interrupted by the sound of a door nearby crashing open, several guards bursting through it and yelling.

"Halt! Criminal Scum!"

"Aw man, now you've done it, they found us!" Morgana grumbled. "We'll have to fight."

"Fight!" Ryuji demanded. "How are you gunna…"

"Come, Zorro!" A pillar of blue light formed around Morgana, something taking form above and behind him.

"Wait, is that a…" Ryuji started, gaping up at the giant cat-headed swashbuckler, complete with mustache and a belt with a "Z" inscribed on the large buckle. Ryuji could only shake his head. "No… I'm just done…. Done for today…."

HR.

As the final guard vanished in the now expected cloud of smoke, Morgana slapped his paws together as though dusting them off. "Didn't even stand a chance!"

"R-right," Ryuji said, making his way out from the wall where he'd taken cover. "Okay, I've gotta ask, what is that? You just go Fwooof! And you've got a cat swordsman, or a fairy, or…."

"Yeah, I kinda wanna know too," Ranma chipped in, looking down at the black outfit that had once more replaced her uniform before it vanished in a blaze of blue light.

"Your Persona is fairly powerful, but I guess you don't have much control, yet." Morgana gestured at the redhead's reappeared uniform. "We don't really have time for the full explanation right now, but they're sort of like… masks that you wear, like the one you take off when you summon yours."

Ranma scratched the back of her neck. "That…. doesn't really make much sense,"

"It's fairly complicated," the cat plush shrugged. "For now, just believe me. It's part of you, and being able to summon it is a good thing. Now let's go!"

"Riiiight," Ryuji said, slowly, "that was clear as mud."

Ranma turned to follow the cat down the dark, stone corridor that the guards had come from. "I think maybe we should just get outta here and figure that out later,"

"Yeah, I guess," Ryuji agreed, moving after her. As the group walked, he looked around. "So this place is really just… sitting where the school is, somehow?" He asked. "This whole prison's gotta be bigger than the first floor. I wonder… hey, wait! Look over there!"

"Huh?" Ranma looked back, "What's… oh," The two humans sprinted over to one of the cells that were sunk into the nearby wall, where a boy in a red and white tracksuit was laying on the ground.

"Is he… doing pushups?" Ranma blinked. "Hey buddy, you okay?"

The boy didn't respond, continuing to haul himself up and down, the trembling in his arms and sweat covering most of his exposed skin indicating that he'd been at it for quite a while. "Hey, can you hear me?" Ryuji asked, sticking a hand into the cell to tap the guy's shoulder.

"Just leave him, we've got to get out of here!" Morgana interrupted.

"No way, we've gotta get this guy outta here," Ryuji objected.

"No we don't, we don't have the time," Morgana retorted. "Besides, he's not even real!"

"He's… what?" Ranma asked, confused.

"He's just… a manifestation created by the owner of this Palace, He's probably been in there doing that for days, at least, and he won't respond to us!"

Ryuji was about to respond to that when Ranma plucked a pebble from the ground nearby and flicked it at the exercising boy's head. It bounced off, and the boy kept right on going.

"That's just…effed up."

"So can we go now?" The cat plush asked, sounding long-suffering.

"Yeah, let's get outta here," Ranma nodded, and the three continued on. It only took a couple more minutes of sneaking through random, dank passages, and crossing drawbridges to get to a stairwell that lead up into the main hall that they'd first arrived in. There were now two guards stationed there, though they seemed content to stand at the door, looking out.

"Well, exiting the way we got in isn't an option," Ranma grumbled.

"Just follow me," Morgana ran out into the hall. Ranma shrugged dubiously, but followed, Ryuji reluctantly trailing her. Fortunately, the guards just kept staring out the front door.

When they made it across to the other side, Ryuji let out a sigh of relief. "So we can get out from here?" He asked, looking around. Spotting a nearby door, he grabbed the handle and tugged. "Hey, it's not opening, stupid cat!"

The plush rolled his comically large eyes. "Over here," he pointed the opposite direction. The two humans surveyed the area, a small reading area with three shelves along the wall, and…

"A vent, huh?" Ranma asked, gesturing to the cross-shaped opening over the shelves.

"It'll lead straight outside," Morgana nodded.

"Okay, so all we've gotta do is get the cover off!" Ryuji exclaimed, excitedly.

"Yeah… that could be-" Ranma started, but was interrupted as the blond boy charged up to the bookshelves, scaling them surprisingly quickly, grabbing onto the wire mesh and yanking as hard as he could. It actually came free fairly easily… which left the boy falling backwards, swinging the cover around in one hand.

Ranma winced as she stepped back, leaving Ryuji to fall to the ground in front of her with a soft thud and a massive clang.

"Well there's no way they didn't hear that, great going blondie," Morgana snarked.

"Gah…." Ryuji stood, rubbing his back. "I don't need commentary from you, cat. And don't call me blondie! Now c'mon, let's get outta here!"

"You two go, I've got something I need to do," the plush said, waving his paw at the vent.

"You sure about that?" Ranma asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine, now go before you get caught!"

"Same to you, I guess," Ranma returned, before following Ryuji into the vent. A moment later she found herself and Ryuji standing on a street in front of the school, pedestrians walking leisurely on the sidewalk around them. She glanced around quickly, taking in her surroundings, but had very little idea how they'd gotten there.

A feminine voice from the pocket where she'd stuck her phone announced "You have returned to the real world, Welcome back."

After a few seconds of glancing around himself, Ryuji slumped forward with his hands resting on his knees, breathing heavily.

"Are… you okay?" She asked, noting that his face looked a little pale.

"Am I okay?" He asked, incredulously. "We just got out of some castle with a King Kamoshida, talking cats and pumpkin wizards!"

"So… that's a no?" The redhead asked, uncertain.

"Hey, what's with that yelling?" A harsh, irritated sounding voice asked. "Are you Shujin students?" a police officer quickly moved down the street towards them. Looking them up and down, he stopped on Ranma for a moment and blinked. "The male uniform? I don't know what you two are doing, but you shouldn't be skipping school."

"Huh? Whadda you mean by that?" Ryuji asked, "We… were just trying to get to school, and then there was this weird castle, and…"

The officer began to look more dubious as the boy talked, and Ranma winced. There was no way anyone outside of Nerima was going to buy something like that, and she really didn't need to be in trouble with the cops again this soon, even if it was for something as minor as skipping class. Gulping, she moved.

"Oh Ryu-kun, Don't try and cover for us, it isn't going to work," She said, quickly moving over and grabbing the blond boy's arm.

"The eff?!" The boy yelled, a look of horror coming across his face as he slowly turned his head to stare at the girl. When it was clear she wasn't going to let go he began shaking his arm hard enough that Ranma had trouble holding on. "What are you doing?!"

"There's no point in lying to the nice officer," She said, turning to the older man with her brightest, sparkliest eyes. "My clothes got soaked in the rain this morning, and I didn't have any spares, so Ryu-kun lent me one of his. We were only trying to go out so I could get some dry ones, really," She said, hurriedly. "We'll go back to school right away, we don't want to cause any trouble."

The officer glared at her for several moments before sighing. "Get back to class, and don't try anything like this again, understand?"

"Yes sir, thank you sir," Ranma said, bowing. "C'mon Ryu-kun."

"Uh…. yeah…. Sure," Ryuji said, following the redhead down the street towards the school building.

As they got closer to the school, Ryuji tried shaking her off his arm again, this time with more success. "Unless everything that happened just now was a dream, I'm like, 90% sure you said you were a guy."

"And I'm 90% sure you were about to tell a cop about a 'magical castle' that replaced the school," Ranma shot back. "And that's pretty high on the stupid meter," she pointed ahead of them. "Especially since the school's right there."

Ryuji's mouth opened and closed silently several times before he managed to sputter "B… but this is the same way we went before, I'm not goin' nuts, right? We did see the castle?"

"Yeah," Ranma nodded, starting up the steps to the school's entrance, "But blabbing it to everyone when we've got no idea what's goin' on is probably a bad idea."

The blond nodded reluctantly. "Yeah, I guess. Yikes, it's already lunch… I'm gunna get into so much crap over this…"

"Tell me about it," Ranma responded as the two entered the building, "Late on the first day, bet Sakura-san's gunna go nuts."

"Sakamoto!" The two froze as a familiar voice rang from down the hall, Ranma finding herself taking a loose stance in preparation for a fight. Standing to the side of the entrance was a tall, square chinned man wearing the most smug grin. "You seem so carefree, coming in three hours late with your girlfriend. Quite a difference from when you did morning practice for the track team."

"Oh Shuddup! It's your fault-" Before Ryuji could get any farther with his exclamation, Ranma pulled his sleeve to get his attention. "What?!"

"Point me to where the faculty office is?" Ranma asked.

"The fac… what?" Ryuji asked, the wind having been taken out of his sails. "Right, the faculty office. Left around that corner, up the stairs, and to the right."

"Who was that?" The teacher asked as the redhead left.

"New student, I think…" Ryuji tilted his head. "Huh, never did get a name."

Kamoshida blinked. "I… thought the new student was male?"

The boy snickered. "Can't even tell the difference, huh? Must be losin' your touch."

END.

A/N: So yeah, Ranma's Persona… We spent way more time arguing over this than is strictly healthy, then JSB suggested Chevalier d'Éon. Weebee laughed it off, then JSB went and dug up some historical research that suggested they actually fit surprisingly well.


	2. Chapter 2: Ryuji's Bad Day 2

Fools Rush In…

By JSB and Weebee

Chapter 2: Ryuji's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day…# 2.

Ranma resisted the urge to fidget with the corner of her uniform jacket as she stood in front of a paper-laden desk. The woman seated behind it somehow seemed to be glaring at her and looking put upon at the same time. "Really?" the brown haired teacher asked, rubbing her forehead. "Half a day late on your first day? Can you explain this?"

"No, not really," Ranma admitted.

"I… see," the teacher said, her voice strained. "You were warned about this just yesterday, if you keep behaving like this, you aren't going to be here very long."

Ranma just nodded. Suddenly, the euphoria of winning for the first time in what seemed like ages was washed away by the very familiar sensation of being yelled at for something she couldn't control.

"There's no point," the teacher muttered. Ranma guessed it was supposed to be under her breath. "The break's almost over," she continued in a louder tone. "There are only going to be five periods today due to the subway accident, so I'll just have you introduce yourself when class resumes."

"Right," Ranma nodded. As the teacher stood from her desk and started sorting her papers, the redhead asked, "Don't suppose I could get some hot water first?"

The older woman froze for a moment, and then dropped the papers back on her desk. Walking quickly over to the water boiler that was kept for tea, Ranma could have sworn that she grew a small, sadistic grin.

"Oh no."

"Excuse me. Can I have everyone's attention please?" Kawakami yelled to the entire office. "I have an important announcement."

"Wait, wha-"

"This here is our new transfer student. I'm sure many of you have heard the rumors. However, you may notice that something is wrong."

"Somethin's wrong all right, what're you doin?" Ranma hissed.

"Better to pull this band-aid off now instead of later." She whispered back, before bringing her attention back to the teachers. "That's correct, this student is female. There is a reason for this and I'm not going to go into the details. This student…" She pitched the small paper cup of warm water at Ranma, "is the same as this student, who is male. Make sure you don't mistakenly kick him out."

"...At least the water wasn't boiling this time" Ranma mumbled to himself, irritated at the astonished expressions of several other teachers in the room.

"Does anyone have any questions?"

"Several, actual-" One of the teachers in the back raised a hand.

"Good, let's go," Kawakami then threw the cup in the garbage and scooped her papers off of her desk, turning for the door.

Ranma reluctantly followed after. The two walked quickly down the hall for a few moments, before he spoke up again. "So, you gunna be that blunt when we tell the class?"

"We aren't going to," the teacher replied, turning back to him. "When I introduce you, I want you to just try and keep a low profile, all right?"

"Yeah, well, that was sorta my plan," Ranma admitted, "But it hasn't worked out too well so far, especially with… the band-aid thing." He gestured vaguely back to the lounge.

Kawakami frowned slightly, her shoulders slumping. "...I probably shouldn't have done it that way, but I still think the staff needed to know."

"Yeah, I get that I guess," Ranma shrugged. "Still don't think this is gunna work out well."

"Remember, simple, sweet. Lie if you have to", the frizzy haired teacher said before opening the door to her classroom, and walking in.

Ranma followed, glancing over the sea of students as he took his place next to her desk. Everyone seemed to be whispering, and they were all trying to look at him without making direct eye contact. He heard something about him punching people out, and resisted the urge to snort.

"Alright Class. Quiet down," Ms. Kawakami called. "Now I'd like to introduce a transfer student: Ranma Saotome." She hesitated for a moment, and then continued cautiously, "Today we… had him attend from the afternoon on since he wasn't feeling well. All right, please say something to the class?"

Ranma was sure that she would be giving him a warning look if she could get away with it. Stepping forward, he spoke while glancing over the room, his eye catching briefly on a flash of blonde hair that looked sort of familiar. "Hey, I'm Ranma, please take care of me." He bowed slightly. "I'm interested in… gymnastics, and that's it."

The murmuring was back, though only one question was clearly audible. "Can you do a backflip?"

"Um… yeah?" Ranma said, uncertainly, before noticing that the teacher was glaring at him. "...but not right now."

"Do you-"

"Alright class, that's enough questions." Kawakami interrupted, feigning pleasantness to the best of her ability. "Ranma, please take the only desk remaining. The one by the window."

Ranma nodded, walking down the far isle and catching sight of that blonde hair again. Sitting at the desk right in front of his was the girl he'd seen in the morning, when the rain had started. As he passed her, she muttered "Lies," just loudly enough that he could hear it. He looked back, confused for a moment but she was staring up at the teacher.

Shrugging it off, he settled into his desk and did what he always did, and stared out the window. With all the nonsense that happened today, he wasn't in the mood to try and figure out a school day he'd missed most of. He'd let tomorrow's Ranma deal with it.

HR.

Ranma stepped out of the classroom, having waited for everyone else to clear out first to ensure no one would bump into him, and was about to head down the hall when the world seemed to waver. For the briefest of moments, the hallway shifted. The floor was covered in a red and gold carpet, the walls turned grey and had lit candle sconces attached to them.

"You should probably head straight home," Ms. Kawakami's voice cut through the illusion, and the hall returned to normal. "Sakura-san seemed really angry when I called to report your absence." Ranma turned to see the teacher standing next to the door, looking at him oddly.

He was about to respond when a blond boy skidded around the corner from the stairwell. "Hey, there you are!" He called, running up to them.

The teacher didn't look pleased. "Sakamoto-kun? What do you want? I heard you were cutting class today as well."

Ryuji slumped forward. "It was… nothin'," he said, groaning in irritation.

"And you still haven't fixed your hair," the teacher continued as though he hadn't spoken.

"Sorry 'bout that," the boy said sarcastically, leaning over to whisper to Ranma. "I'll be waiting on the rooftop." With that, the blond boy left.

"You might not want to associate too much with him," The frizzy haired woman said, sighing. "Ever since he left the track team he's just been nothing but trouble, and you don't need the reputation. Somehow people are already talking about you and what you did."

"I'll keep that in mind," Ranma said, heading down the hall. "See ya tomorrow."

As he turned into the stairwell, he spotted the principal talking to that king guy. "Why did you allow a student like him to transfer here?" The younger man demanded.

'Yeah, talk a little louder,' Ranma thought, deliberately turning for the stairs up. After going up a second flight of stairs he pushed open the door to the roof, and caught sight of the blond boy balancing on a chair behind a few scattered desks.

"Hey," He called, walking over and sitting on the edge of one of the desks. "Just so ya know, if you called me up here for a duel it's not gunna work."

"Dude, what are you talking about?" Ryuji asked incredulously, letting his chair land back on four feet.

Ranma waved it off. "Old inside joke, I guess."

"Right…" Ryuji said, slowly. "Just to be sure, you remember the… castle… thing earlier, right?"

"With king bathrobe?" Ranma nodded.

"Heh, man I'd love to call him that to his face." Ryuji laughed, seeming immensely relieved. "I was sorta half convinced that was all some nuts dream. I mean, I still am, kinda." He started balancing his chair again. "You turnin' into a girl, then a ninja, and Kamoshida going all emperor of a castle in the school… I mean, that last part don't sound too off, really. Kamoshida's treated like a big shot around here because he won a medal at the Olympics or something so it sorta-"

Ranma raised a hand. "You might wanna slow down before ya pass out," he advised.

"Right… yeah, sorry," The blond boy said, shaking his head. "But what the eff, man?"

"You get used to it," Ranma advised.

Ryuji shook his head. "Man, I heard some stuff going around school about you, that you've been to prison or whatever, but you're actin' way too much like this is normal."

"I already turned into a girl when I got here," Ranma reminded.

"...Yeah," the blond looked uncomfortable. "So about that castle, and that version of Kamoshida we found there… the way he acted was just…"

Ranma tilted his head. "So that wasn't normal?"

"Wha… No! I mean… sorta, I guess, just… more," Ryuji shook his head. "Some of the stuff I've heard about him, it was like all that, but it was really exaggerated, y'know? Like I know he's a bad guy, but to most of the school he seems good." He snorted. "If they could see that, though… hey, you think we could get back there?"

"I dunno," Ranma looked uncertain. "It might not be a great idea for you to go back in there."

Ryuji clenched a fist. "What, so you're sayin' you'll go in alone?"

"Look," Ranma rubbed his forehead with one hand. "I might not even go in at all, I'm already in enough trouble as it is and this is just askin' to make it worse."

"So you're just gunna leave this alone?" Ryuji questioned. "You can't just ignore something like this!"

"I don't even know what 'this' was," Ranma answered. "I can't believe I'm sayin' this, but we've gotta figure out more before we charge in."

"Yeah…you're probably right," Ryuji admitted reluctantly. "So yeah, I guess that's why I called you up here. I just wanted to… figure out what was goin' on."

"You and me both," Ranma agreed.

"So we've got that settled…" The blond boy stopped for a moment. "Look, I… might come up and talk to you later. Just don't ignore me, okay? I'm sure you've heard from Kawakami how much of a pain I am, but the way I see it, we're sort of in the same boat."

"I… guess?" Ranma said, uncertainly.

"Yeah, cool," Ryuji nodded quickly. "So I'll see ya later!"

Ranma looked after the other boy uncertainly as he headed down the stairs from the roof, but eventually shrugged. He was half way through vaulting over the wall to fall to the ground when he caught himself, shaking his head and following.

HR.

Ranma wasn't really surprised when he opened the front door to the Cafe, only to get an irritated glare from Sojiro. "Hey," the older man said, not sounding friendly in the least. "I got an interesting call from your school today. It's only your first day and you're already showing up hours late?"

"Yeah, well…" Ranma started. For a moment, he thought of saying the same thing he had to his teacher, but that had gotten his curse revealed in front of the entire teacher's lounge. Going with the frustration tinged truth, he snapped "Would you believe magic bullshit?"

The older man stopped for a moment. "You know? Yes." He set the glass he'd been cleaning down on the counter and looked at the boy levelly. "I still don't want this happening again. You're on probation, you know what that means, right? They're not going to cut you any slack."

"Yeah, I got that," Ranma agreed, walking past the older man as the phone behind the shop counter rang.

As he headed up the stairs, he heard Sojiro talking to someone about how he was closing up shop and would be home soon. A little curious, he paused at the top of the stairs. The gruff, bearded man didn't strike him as the type to have a family. He was just leaning over to try and listen when he heard a yell of "Hey, don't forget to lock up the place and flip the sign, I'm headed out!"

"Yeah, I got it!" He repeated, "Not like I've got much else to do." Dropping his dufflebag on the pile of boxes in the middle of the room, he sat down on the bed and glanced out the window. He was considering just grabbing some food and heading to bed, but it'd be extremely early, and he wasn't that sleepy, the events of the day still running through his mind.

Hopping back to his feet, he headed down stairs and out of the building. "Gotta find some place to practice…" he muttered, heading down the narrow street, away from the direction of the subway station, and the small bath house and laundromat that were squeezed in around it.

On the other end, there was actually something like a shopping street, though pickings were fairly slim. There was a small, dingy looking building with a sign that identified it as a clinic, wedged in next to a recycling center, a grocery, and a set of stairs next to it that proclaimed themselves 'batting cages.' Curious, he climbed them. They lead up to the roof of the grocery store, where a small batting box was set up behind a chain-link gate, a set of available times written on a sign next to it. "Well, that's a bust," he grumbled, looking over the open space inside the fenced enclosure but not seeing an easy way in. Trying to find some place where he could train was starting to look unlikely. Fortunately, he'd gotten a fairly good workout that day, even if the method had been weirder than usual.

Grumbling irritably, he headed back down the steps and back towards the Coffee shop.

HR.

"And we're here again…" Ranma mumbled under his breath as he gazed up at the stone cieling of the cell he was laying up and throwing his legs off of the side of the uncomfortable cot, he was interrupted by someone leaning in through the bars. "About time you've come to!" One of the two girls, the one with the eyepatch on her right eye, yelled. "On your feet, inmate!"

"Huh, if it ain't Rightey," the pigtailed martial artist grumbled, standing and stepping over to the bars as she stepped back. "Where's Leftie?"

"I'm right here," the other girl answered from next to the cell. "Our master wants to speak with you, it's for your own sake that you take his words to heart."

"So he sticks me in a cell," Ranma rolled his eyes. "But I ain't gettin' out of here until I listen, right?"

"That is correct," The Nose said, sitting behind his desk as he was before. "But I would prefer to consider this a celebration of our reunion."

"A celebration of…" Ranma shook his head. "Look, I know you're screwin' with me, and I got no idea why, but I'm not celebrating."

The old man chuckled. "So angry, and yet you've awakened to your Persona, the first step of your rehabilitation."

Ranma frowned. "There's that word again."

"There is no need to understand it all for the time being," The Nose continued. "You will be training the power of Persona, which you have awakened to. Personas are, for lack of a better word, a 'mask.' -An armor of the heart when confronting worldly matters. I have high expectations of you."

"Yeah?" Ranma asked. "You and a whole lotta other people, and they tend to screw me over. If you're the one who helped me save Ryuji, then I guess I gotta thank you, but you really oughtta start makin' sense."

"There is no need to worry, you will learn when the time comes," The old man dismissed his question. "By the by, have you come to appreciate the Metaverse Navigator? Using it will allow you to come and go between reality and Palaces."

"Palaces?" Ranma asked, but was getting the feeling by this point that he wasn't going to get any actually useful answers. "And what the heck's the 'metaverse navigator?'"

"It is a program on your phone," The Nose explained. "I bestowed it to you as a means to train you as a thief."

"Damn it, Pops," Ranma muttered under his breath. "Look, I don't steal things, got it? I don't care if you know about my old man or whatever, I'm not robbin' someone for you."

"Our master is giving you a gift, Inmate!" Caroline yelled, leaning into his personal space. "You should be grateful!"

"Like I said, I am!" Ranma shot back. "That don't mean I'm gunna be his personal cat burglar!"

The Nose leaned back in his chair. "I'm not asking anything of you, really. Not using the Navigator is as much a decision as anything else. However it will mean that your rehabilitation has failed. From this point on, now that you know of its existence, you will be the one to decide to activate it, or not to."

"I really don't understand what is going on anymore"

"If you devote yourself to your training and become a fine thief, you will understand in time," Lefty assured.

"You guys sure you don't know pops?" Ranma asked. "'Cuz my rehabilitation involving becomin' a better thief sounds like the kind of backwards crap he'd come up with."

Rightey opened her mouth for her usual strident objection. "Shut up, in-" She then stopped and blinked. "You know, he has a point, that doesn't really make sense."

After an awkward beat of silence, The Nose cleared his throat. "I am aware that undertaking your task alone will be… difficult, so if you find others who would prove beneficial to you, I will extend the functions of the Metaverse Navigator to them as well."

"...Completely ignored what both of us said," Ranma muttered, looking at Rightey, who seemed to have retaken her usual stance glaring at him as a bell rang from far off in the distance.

"It's time," Rightey announced. "Go back and enjoy whatever rest you might have."

"Gee, thanks," Ranma muttered sarcastically as the world around him faded away.

HR.

"So, this is the routine now, huh?" Ranma mumbled to himself, fiddling with the straps of the bag that he held to his chest with his left arm. He was jammed next to the door on a crowded Tokyo subway car, and he sort of hated it. Roof hopping would be a lot easier than this, even over the long distance, but… would probably draw way too much attention.

Trying to tune out the dozens of conversations around him, the only thing that came to mind was that damned dream. He hadn't felt so much like he was talking to a brick wall since dealing with the Kunos, and still had no idea what any of it meant.

Fishing around in a pants pocket with his free hand, he produced his phone, squinting at it. He started poking at the screen with his thumb, eventually getting to the 'evil eye' app. Unlike the last time he'd done so, this time the app opened and showed a menu, white text on a red and black background. "Is…. that supposed to be me?" He asked,examining the monochrome anime-style artwork to one side of the page.

"Not gonna lie, I look cool." He said smugly, grinning as he tapped one of the three menu items, labelled 'StaTS'. He looked at the almost star shaped diagram that popped up, frowning to himself. Sure, it listed him as having pretty high Guts and Proficiency was pretty accurate, but that 0 Kindness rating was kinda mean. The label on it was 'Offensive'. He wasn't offensive was he?

Shaking his head, he backed out of the stats section and tapped 'PeRsONA'. Since there was only one option past that, he tapped it as well, and twitched. "Ryuji wasn't kidding about the fairy thing, huh?"

In a similar art style to the portrait on the main page, a very… frilly… figure was shown, dressed in a light-blue accented white longcoat and short pants, four translucent white wings projecting from its back, and a dark blue, plumed, wide-brimmed hat on its head.

"Of course it looks like that," he muttered under his breath, not really all that surprised. Taking in the rest of the page, he glanced past a set of strange symbols with 'Wk' or 'Res' written under them to a set of stats like those found in some computer RPG, the number for 'STR' outlined in red, and reading '1'. Most everything else seemed to be in the high 20s or low 30s, bars next to them about a third full. Below that was a set of eight slots, three of which were filled with 'Curse of Weakness', 'Lunge', and 'Kouha'.

The thing even had the moxibustion listed? He was interrupted before he could do more by the train's PA system announcing his stop. At least the strange app had acted as a bit of a distraction from the ride. Closing it, he stuck his phone into his pocket and dug his umbrella out of his school bag. Not going to let the rain get the better of him this time.

HR.

'Probably shouldn't have brushed off studyin' last night,' Ranma thought to himself as he quickly made his way out of his last class of the day. For the most part, things had gone well, but he had been called on directly once and botched it completely. It wasn't his fault that he hadn't read works by a bunch of ancient greek guys… Well, it probably was, it'd probably been assigned reading. 'Great start, Saotome.'

"Hey there!" The shout was loud and confident, causing him to turn to look at it before he processed the second half. "Takamaki!"

It was King Bathrobe, who was rapidly approaching the blonde, twin-pigtailed girl who was leaving class behind him. Ranma was about to turn and continue on his way when he saw the girl tense up, her eyes flicking around nervously as if looking for escape. Pausing at the top of the stairs, he listened as the square-chinned man continued.

"You looking for a ride home? Things have been pretty dangerous lately with all those accidents."

Ranma rolled his eyes, as the girl shifted uncomfortably. "Sorry, I have a photo shoot today." As the man was about to open his mouth, she continued hurriedly, "It's for the summer special, so I can't afford to miss it…"

"Hey now, being a model's fine and dandy, but don't work your pretty little self to the bone," Bathrobe said, smiling broadly. "You mentioned you weren't feeling well, right? Something about appendicitis?"

"Yes," The girl said, stepping slightly to the side. "I keep planning to go to the hospital, but I've been too busy. Sorry to worry you."

"You must be lonely, too," the man said, stepping a little closer to her. "I feel sorry for keeping your best friend at practice so often. That's why I asked you out in the first place."

He turned away from her and walked a couple of steps towards the stairs before looking back. "Oh, and be careful around that transfer student. He's got a criminal record after all. If something were to-"

"Hey!" Ranma interrupted, having reached his limit, and spun around to face the pair. "If you're gunna talk about me, could ya at least do it to my face?"

"Excuse me?" The man asked, his tone light.

"Yeah," Ranma continued as the blonde girl took the opportunity to turn and leave. "Miss. Kawakami was tellin' me that rumors about me were goin' around. Didn't figure a teacher would be the one doing it."

The man shrugged. "I just felt it would be a good idea to let everyone know what was happening, that's all."

"I could have sworn the principal didn't want this kind of thing spread around. Ya know, ruining the school's reputation by letting it be known that a "Dangerous Criminal" is allowed ta be a student and all."

The man's eyes narrowed slightly. "The principal and I disagree on this matter," he said shortly.

"And I guess it's already too late, huh?" Ranma responded, sarcastically. He realized that he'd stepped a bit too far out of line when the man frowned.

"No matter what past you may have, I expect you to be respectful to a member of the faculty."

"Yes sir," Ranma returned, doing his best not to grit his teeth.

The taller man nodded tursely, and then glanced around to realize that the girl he'd been talking to was gone. Without any further word, he brushed past Ranma and down the hall.

"Welcome to his enemies list." Ranma turned to see Ryuji standing halfway down the stairs, leaning on the rail. "Might not've been smart… but pretty understandable."

"Guy was doing a really bad Yakuza impression to some girl," Ranma shrugged. "Kinda painful to watch."

"Ah, the 'nice pair of legs ya got there, shame if somethin' happened to 'em'?" Ryuji asked, adopting an impossible to place accent.

"Yeah, somethin' like that, thanks to the scary new criminal transfer student," Ranma snorted.

"Well, you are kinda scary," Ryuji returned, gesturing for Ranma to follow as he headed down to the main floor. "If only for the whole 'Fwoosh' thing." He made an expansive gesture with his hands to illustrate his point.

"Fwoosh thing?" Ranma asked, looking at the other boy blankly.

"C'mon," Ryuji said. "You already told me I'm not nuts, don't go back on it now!"

"Oh, the persona," Ranma nodded. "Yeah, you're not nuts."

"Right," the blond boy nodded, producing his phone from his pocket. "So, when I checked my phone yesterday, I found this thing." he pointed at a duplicate of the 'Evil Eye' app. "It's even got Kamoshida's castle listed, but I was holdin' off on doing anything about it until I talked to you."

"So that's what he meant…" Ranma muttered to himself, recalling The Nose's words from the night before.

"So, we going or what?" Ryuji asked as the two walked out of the school's front entrance.

"No," Ranma returned, flatly.

"No?!" Ryuji demanded. "We just talked about this yesterday! We can't just leave it be!"

"You might wanna be a bit quieter," Ranma winced, but fortunately most of the students around them were too focused on going home to pay much attention. "And no, we can't. But look, I just got here, and staying out of trouble's been a miserable failure so far. Chargin' in blindly's just gunna cause problems, as usual."

"So what, we're just gunna sit here and… research it or something? How?" Ryuji snapped back, though slightly more quietly as the two turned down a nearby sidestreet and came to a stop. "If you're not goin, then I'll go myself!"

"That's an even worse idea. How will you even fight? You're not likely to find that plush again."

"I'll just stay outta sight," Ryuji replied. "Should be fine if I don't go in too far."

Ranma growled under his breath, rubbing his forehead. "Look, if one of us has gotta go in, it should probably be me. I've got one o' those Persona things, and I can run if I need to."

"So you will go in," Ryuji proclaimed.

"Alone," Ranma cut him off, firmly.

"If you don't let me go with you, I'll just follow," Ryuji countered.

Ranma twitched. At the moment, he'd dearly like to swipe the other boy's phone and toss it onto a roof, but instead, he nodded reluctantly. "You stay behind me and run if I tell you to, got it? I can't help you if something gets ahold of you."

"Yeah, I got it," Ryuji said, eagerly tapping the screen of his phone. "Here we go!"

"...yay," Ranma deadpanned as the world seemed to waver around them as they approached the school.

Ryuji's phone then chimed in. "Kamoshida… Shujin Academy… Pervert… Castle… Beginning Navigation"

HR.

"Haha! So it was real!" Ryuji cried, pumping his right arm in victory. He looked toward the stone castle that was once a normal school. The drawbridge was down, welcoming the two of them to enter. "You know, maybe that isn't a good thing."

"Ya think?" Ranma quipped, taking stock of himself. Instead of his school uniform, he was once again wearing a black gi and hood. He could also tell he was wearing a mask, but couldn't particularly tell anything about it. "Getting involved in magic always leads to trouble."

Without responding, Ryuji ran across the drawbridge and headed into the courtyard.

"What did I just say about stickin behind me?" The pigtailed ninja yelled, charging in right after him. "Oy, blondie!" Ryuji came to a halt in front of a set of large windows, red light ominously glowing from inside. He turned around, with a bit of a sheepish grin.

"Huh? Oh, righ… Dude, your clothes!" Ryuji exclaimed, pointing at him. "That happened last time too, come to think of it. Are you some kind of ninja?"

"Seems that way..." Ranma looked at the way Ryuji was staring at him, and then grinned. "Ya jealous?"

"I-I ain't jealous." Ryuji stuttered, turning his head away and kicking the ground.

"Right," Ranma rolled his eyes, looking over the front face of the building. This time, the main doors were closed tight, and probably guarded on the other side. Glancing over to the vent they'd used to escape previously, he was surprised to see the plush toy that leapt out of it to the ground.

"What are you two doing here?" The little creature demanded.

"Ugh.. you again?" Ryuji asked, grimacing.

"The shadows started acting strange, so I came out here to see what was going on," the plush explained. "You guys barely got out last time, why are you back?"

"I've been askin' myself the very same question." Ranma said, glaring at the blond boy next to him.

"Look, I keep sayin' we can't just leave this alone!" Ryuji snapped, loudly. "Schools don't just turn into castles!"

"Keep it down," the plush hissed. "And the school didn't turn into anything. This castle is just a manifestation of one person's perception of the place."

"Huh?" Both humans stated almost in unison.

"That one you called Kamoshida," Morgana said, obviously annoyed. "This is how his distorted heart views the school."

"I don't get it. Explain it in a way that makes sense," Ryuji exclaimed.

"Like he's the king of the castle, like you said yesterday," Ranma offered.

"At least one of you's not a moron," Morgana nodded.

"What'd you-" Ryuji started, turning rapidly toward the plush cat before he was interrupted by a piercing scream that echoed from inside the castle.

"What were those? What did you call them? Manifestations?" Ryuji questioned, concern clearly showing on his face.

Morgana nodded. "It's been getting worse since yesterday. I guess you guys escaping really annoyed him."

"But… those things looked like members of the sports teams…" Ryuji said, nervously. "Gah, we gotta get in there!" Before either of the other two could stop him, he charged forward and rammed shoulder first into the entrance door, bouncing off onto the ground and producing nothing but a loud thud.

"Well, if there are guards behind there, they heard that," Ranma muttered.

"This is… bullshit," The blond boy said, a snarl on his lips as he stood back up.

Ranma lay a hand on his shoulder. "If you're gunna start yellin' again, don't."

"Okay, okay. Fine. I got it." Ryuji sighed.

"I'm not sure if you do," Ranma snapped back. "If we get caught, half this castle's gunna be trying to kill us, and you can't fight. Settle down!"

"Hey man, calm down. I said I got it."

"Can we just leave the loud one here?" The plushie asked.

"Would you guys stop tryin' to ditch me?" Ryuji muttered under his breath.

"Would you stop being an idiot first?" The plush countered, crossing its small arms over it's chest in a huff.

Ranma just ignored the bickering and walked over to the vent they'd used to escape the day before. Leaping up into it, he looked back. "You two comin'?"

HR.

"I can't believe the front entrance was unguarded…" Ranma muttered to himself as the three made their way back down into the dungeon they'd escaped the day before. So far, the place had been eerily deserted, even the cells in the upper levels devoid of their previous prisoners.

Occasionally, another scream would echo from below.

As they reached the bottom of the most recent staircase, Morgana raised one paw. "I hear something," he hissed quietly. Carefully edging up to the door, they peered around it, spotting one of the castle's guards standing in the hall, blocking the way.

"I don't think he's movin," Ryuji whispered.

"We're going to have to fight our way through, I think," Ranma agreed.

"Maybe... " Morgana was silent for a moment. "He's facing away from us, though. If we can ambush him and rip his mask off, he'll be too disoriented to call for help."

"Rip his mask off?" Ranma asked, frowning. "How hard do you have to yank to do that?"

"Pretty hard," Morgana answered.

"I'm… not gunna be able to do that," the pigtailed ninja said, reluctantly. The plush stared at him for a few moments before sighing.

"Alright. Guess I have to show you two how it's done." He said, trying to crack his knuckles. He failed. "Get ready."

Ranma did so, reaching up and gripping his mask as the little creature charged through the door, vaulting into the air and scrabbling at the helmet of the surprised shadow-knight. As the thing dissolved into red and black swirls, Ranma was already removing his mask, and the battle took only a few moments.

Waiting and listening for a moment to ensure that the battle hadn't been heard, the group then continued on, across a drawbridge and into a short hall with entrances on either end. Morgana got almost to the far entrance when he froze. "More guards… and they're headed this way."

Rapidly backtracking, this time Ranma heard it too as more armored boots clanked over the bridge they'd just crossed. "Great, we're trapped in here… This fight's gunna be bad," he muttered.

"There's a door over there," Ryuji offered, pointing. The three headed for it as quickly as they could, hoping that there wouldn't be yet more guards on the other side. Pulling it open, the blond boy froze for a moment. "The hell?"

"Get in!" Morgana hissed, gesturing frantically for the two humans to hurry.

When Ranma cleared the door, he realized why Ryuji had reacted the way he had. The room seemed to slowly shift back and forth between the interior of the dungeon and a classroom in the school, sort of like what they'd seen in the entrance before. The difference here was that the place didn't seem to want to settle down, and kept doing it every few seconds.

"This is spooky." Ranma noted.

"This," Morgana said, taking on a lecturing tone, "is an area where the ruler of this place has less power. Probably because he doesn't go here very often. The distortion is weaker here."

"Okay, seriously, how do you know all of this stuff?" Ryuji demanded.

"I've been investigating these palaces for a little while now," the plush explained.

"That word's come up a couple times," Ranma interjected.

"It's what I call these places, where this world is distorted by someone's desires," Morgana offered.

"So are those Personas and that outfit Ranma's wearing part of all that?" Ryuji asked.

Morgana shook his head. "Not the personas, no. They're a natural aspect of this place. The outfit is a defense against the distortion around us, though."

"Wait…" Ryuji said, nervously. "If you need a defense, does that mean I'm gunna… I dunno, become Kamoshida's slave or something?"

"Not likely. One of the shadows would probably kill you first."

"Well thanks a lot, that makes me feel way better!" Ryuji yelled.

"Okay," Ranma said, slowly. "So why have you been nosing around these places? And why didn't ya take off after you escaped from that cell?"

"I'm searching for a way to return my humanity," Morgana explained.

"You're human?" Ryuji snorted. "No effin way!"

"You… do remember I change genders with water temperature, right?" Ranma asked, looking at the blond boy oddly.

"Yeah, but you don't turn into some weird plush cat," Ryuji objected, weakly.

Ranma rolled his eyes. "Know a guy who turns into a knife-throwing duck."

"You're joking right? That just sounds impossible." Ryuji said, and brought a finger to his chin. "Like, did he use his bill to throw the knife? How could a webbed foot grab a knife?"

"I think we're getting a bit off-topic, here," Morgana interrupted.

"But… how small were the knives?"

"Ryuji, focus," Ranma ordered. "But he hid and threw them with his wings."

"Freakin' impossible," Ryuji muttered, but Ranma just ignored him, cracking the room's door open and looking out. Two guards were still outside, standing in the middle of the hall.

"Any sign of anything unusual?" One guard asked.

The other shook its helmeted head. "No, nothing. Those idiots probably just slacked off. King Kamoshida will deal with them."

"Any more slaves we need to drag down to the training area?" The first asked.

"Nah, think that's all of 'em," the other said, before the two turned and left the area.

"Did… that seem way too convenient to anyone else?" Ranma asked, looking back to see Morgana and Ryuji close behind him.

"Hmm. I know that some of the shadows that are pulled into a palace don't really want to be there. Maybe they're trying to help us?" Morgana offered.

"Or it's a trap," Ranma countered.

"Or that, yes."

"Guys, stop overthinking things. They were just talking cause they assumed no one was nearby." Ryuji claimed, his index finger raised in the air to emphasize his point. "Either way, we have to go."

"No, we really don't," Ranma countered. "We've figured out what this place is, and that's what we're here for. We should pull back."

"I don't think what I'm looking for is down here, so I don't have a problem with that," Morgana nodded.

"But… we've gotta…" Ryuji protested.

"Do what?" Ranma asked. "Is there somethin' down there we need to get? We got the info we wanted, let's go."

"I...I wanted to get pictures. Ya know. Proof of what was happening." Ryuji countered.

"Proof that Kamashida's torturin' students in some sort of castle dungeon?" Ranma asked. "I don't think anyone's gunna buy it. Besides, we couldn't take 'em here even if they did."

"Gah… fine. Let's just get outta here then, I guess," the blond boy said, reluctantly.

It was much easier for the group retrace their steps back out of the dungeon. As they reached the top of the final staircase into the main hall, Ranma, who was in the lead, slowed to a stop.

"Trap it is…" he muttered, as the sound of a closing gate was heard behind them. Before them, in all of the other entrances to the hall and at the top of the stairs stood the castle's armored knights, at least eight of them total.

"So, it was you knaves again." Kamoshida's distorted voice came from the top of the central stairwell, where he was standing between two guards, one of which was wearing golden armor. "I can't believe you would be stupid enough to enter my domain again."

"The school ain't your personal castle, and you can't just do whatever ya want!" Ryuji yelled, his face contorting in anger. "I know how you think of the students, and I ain't gunna let you get away with it!"

"Heh. Listen to him bark." Kamoshida chuckled. "Those who bark the loudest tend to have the least bite, you know."

"You seem to be barkin' pretty loud," Ranma observed.

Kamoshida looked at him for a moment, before seeming to dismiss him and return his gaze to Ryuji."Oh, dragging along another little friend? I'd be careful of this one if I were you. He almost got another friend of his killed yesterday, and that's not even getting into what he did to the track team."

Ryuji stepped back as if he'd been physically hit. ""I don't wanna hear about any of that crap from you!"

"What's the matter, Track Traitor?" Kamoshida asked. "You remember what happened. Your little… violent outburst cost the rest of the team dearly. And you don't even have the decency of being ashamed of it."

"Ryuji, he's playing you here," Ranma said, evenly. "And you, 'Track Traitor?' seriously? Is that the best you've got?"

"What, don't want to hear about how he betrayed the whole track team for his own selfish reasons, crushed all of their hopes?"

"No, not really," Ranma shrugged. "Doesn't have anything to do with me."

"Hmm, I see." The square chinned man paused slightly, confused. He then shrugged. "You chose your minion fairly well, Sakamoto."

The bathrobed king turned his head to his gold armored knight to give an order. "Kill them all."

"Minion?" Ranma muttered, as several of the knights stepped forward.

"Ryuji, get behind us!" Morgana ordered, his persona manifesting.

Several of the knights dissolved into red and black puddles, before reforming into a collection of pumpkin wizards and shriveled, hovering figures, lead by a large, black, horned horse.

"You will die because king Kamoshida wishes it!" The horse creature yelled, charging.

"Yeah, whatever," Ranma retorted, leaping over it easily, a bolt of white light exiting his hand and slamming against its back. Morgana was significantly less mobile, standing his ground and summoning a wind blast beneath the creature that sent it staggering sideways, while Ranma continued to toss bolts of light at the pumpkin wizards behind it.

For his part, Ryuji backed towards the stairs the group had come up from as the other two fought.

They'd taken down several of the smaller creatures and done a fair amount of damage to the horse, when it happened. Ranma heard Ryuji call out in fear, turning his head to see one of the pumpkin wizards flying towards the blond boy from the stairs. He was about to try and get over to help him, when Ryuji reached into a pants pocket and withdrew… a gun?

The blond boy levelled it at the creature that was charging him and pulled the trigger several times. With a barrage of loud cracks, the thing fell to the ground and vanished in a wave of black mist.

"How… How did that work?!" Ryuji asked, his eyes wide as he gaped down at the weapon in his hand.

"I guess guns work on shadows?" Ranma asked. "Where the hell'd you get one, though?"

"Hey, I guess you're useful after-" Morgana started, though his lack of attention cost him, the horned horse bringing a hoof down on his back and knocking him to the ground.

Ranma immediately moved to try and help, assuming Ryuji would be able to handle himself for the time being, and hearing the sound of the gun discharging several more times behind him.

Morgana tried to summon his persona to help, but the horse would just twist its hoof every time he tried, eliciting a cry of pain. "Damn it!" Ranma muttered under his breath, casting a couple more light bolts at it and evading a gust of concentrated wind that it threw back in retaliation. "How much damage can this thing take?"

"Take this, Kamoshida!"

'No, he didn't…' Ranma turned rapidly to see Ryuji half way up the main staircase, gun held in front of him. The blond boy pulled the trigger once, the bullet flying past the startled king's face. When he pulled it again, however, all that came from the weapon was an ominous click.

"Shit, it's out of ammo." Ryuji cursed, beginning to back up.

"Then reload!" Ranma called back.

"You don't understand, Ranma! This thing is a toy gun." Ryuji yelled back, now beginning to rush back down the stairs. "I was so close."

"How unfortunate for you," Kamoshida drawled, sweeping his hand forward. "Kill him!"

The golden armored knight next to him began charging down the stairs, raising its sword over its head as the blond boy tried to scramble away from it.

Ranma moved almost without thinking, his persona manifesting behind him. When he got between the charging knight and Ryuji, d'Éon's rapier shot past his head and deep into the knight's eye slit. Instead of fading away, however, the thing simply bellowed in rage, its sword moving in a wide arc that slammed into the pigtailed ninja and sent him flying across the room and into a wall with a bone-jarring impact.

He tried to shake his head clear, but didn't do it quickly enough as he felt a steel boot impact against his back. Craning his neck, he spotted one of the knights that hadn't joined the fight standing over him. "Well, fuck…"

Morgana growled angrily as the horse creature over him twisted its hoof once again, Ryuji looking between his two downed allies as he slowly backed away from the golden armored figure.

"You didn't have a plan at all, did you?" Kamoshida asked, chuckling. "Just charged right in and ended up like this."

"No!" Ryuji yelled desperately.

"That's always been your problem, Sakamoto. You let your emotions get away from you, and get ideas above your station. How dare you raise a hand at me!" The older man shook his head, falsely sincere. "And after I was so kind to supervise track practice."

"That wasn't practice, it was abuse!" Ryuji yelled back. "You had it out for the team!"

"The whole group was nothing but an eyesore!" The robed man proclaimed, with a wide hand gesture. "That coach was pathetic too, getting in the way of my achievements, good thing he got fired. If he hadn't opposed me directly, maybe I'd have stopped at breaking his star runner's leg."

"What?!" Morgana growled, redoubling his efforts to escape the creature that held him. "Is that why…"

Kamoshida laughed. "Once these two are dealt with, maybe I'll just finish the job and break the other one. I can just claim self defense again. After all, you came after me with a gun!"

"No…" Ryuji mumbled, as he slowly backed up before the golden armored figure who was equally slowly stalking towards him. "Damn it… I'm going to lose again! He wasn't satisfied stopping me from running, the entire track team's gone because of this asshole!"

"Ryuji, stop listening to him!," Ranma called, "If you can get me or Morgana free we-" he was interrupted by a boot coming down on his head, driving his face into the floor.

"Yeah… Everything that was important to me was taken by this guy, and all because I let him get to me before… I'll never get any of it back! The blond boy brought one hand up, holding it against the side of his head, his eyes seeming to become distant.

"Heh, just stay there and watch," Kamoshida chuckled. "Watch him let you down just as he did his other friends. And this time, it'll cost you your lives. All because you sided with trash like him!"

"No… that's what you are…" Ryuji said, though he looked like he was in pain, his knees buckling as he fell to the ground. Even so, he glared at the king at the top of the stairs. "You're the real scumbag, Kamoshida! You're always looking down on people, using them… with that stupid smile on your face!"

As if that was a catalyst, the boy fell further forward, both hands now clutching the sides of his head.

"Wait, is that…" Ranma mumbled.

Evidently Kamoshida was thinking the same thing. "What are you doing! Stop him!" he yelled, gesturing frantically at the gold armored knight. It abruptly raised its sword, charging forward and bringing it down in one smooth motion that should have chopped the blond in half. Instead, though, it stopped dead, resting against the teenager's face, a grey skull-shaped mask resting over his eyes.

"You're gunna have to hit harder than that…" Ryuji growled, yanking on the sides of the mask as hard as he could as the knight reared back for a second strike. When the mask came free, a blast of swirling, blue energy exploded outward from Ryuji's body, knocking the gold knight backwards several feet.

"Right on…" the boy breathed, a wide smirk dominating his face as he stretched out a hand. "Captain Kidd!" Behind him, a figure solidified as Ryuji took off the skull mask. A skeletal man stared down with a fiery eye, riding a relatively smaller smiling ghost ship as if it were a surfboard. On the skeleton's left arm, attached at the cuff of its shirt, was a ship's cannon, pointed menacingly at the king. The skeleton's head, grinning more than a skeleton normally did, was adorned with an eyepatch and a captains hat, both bearing the skull and crossbones.

The persona's cannon arm began crackling with energy before two bolts of lightning exploded from it, smashing into the unicorn and knight that held the other two captive.

Ranma and Morgana wasted no time, scrambling away and up to their feet before falling in next to Ryuji. "All right, now that I've got this power, it's time for payback!"

"Sounds like a plan," Ranma nodded, looking himself over. Fortunately, the sword strike that had sent him flying earlier hadn't actually cut through his gi. He supposed that made some sense, given Morgana had called it protection before, and Ryuji seemed to be wearing something similar now, a heavy navy coat that flared out at the neck.

"I'm ready," Ryuji proclaimed. "Let's do this!"

The three moved, Ranma and Morgana taking off their own masks and tossing a couple of spells at the nearby golden knight, who had shifted into a spear-wielding horseman in a swirl of black and red. For his part, Ryuji fired another lightning bolt at kamoshida, though it missed due to the distance. The king just continued to sneer as Morgana finally managed to destroy the bicorn that had been going after him the whole time.

When one of the pumpkin wizards got too close to him, Ryuji pulled a lead pipe from behind his back, smashing the thing repeatedly overhand. Charging past it, he swung at the spear-wielding horseman just as Ranma hit it from behind with a blast of light, the being bursting into a cloud of shadow. "Think that's all of 'em…" He panted. "Now, even if you apologize, I ain't forgivin' you…"

"This is MY castle," Kamoshida said, gesturing to the side. As he did, a scantily clad blonde girl walked through the door there, taking a place beside and behind him.

"That's…" Ranma started, recalling the confrontation the girl had had with the teacher outside of the classroom.

"What's goin' on here?!" Ryuji asked.

"You don't listen very well, do you," Kamoshida said as the girl leaned in towards him, grabbing onto his arm and rubbing up against him. "This is my castle, where I control everything! Everyone with any brains wishes to be loved by me!"

"Takamaki! Say somethin'!" Ryuji yelled, stepping towards the stairs.

"Ryuji, she's not real, like the other inhabitants of this place, remember? She's just a being made from Kamoshida's cognition of her." Morgana reminded irritably.

"You can tell yourself that all you want," Kamoshida retorted. "But I can tell you're jealous."

""Th… That's what he thinks of Ann?" the blond boy sounded outraged.

"That's how she truly is, for someone who isn't a troublemaker. You wouldn't understand that, though. And I believe I've wasted enough of my time on you." The robed man made another gesture. "Clean them up this instant!"

As he spoke, a new group of knights materialized at the bottom of the stairs in a flash of black and red.

"We can't take on this many of them after the ones we've already fought," Morgana offered. "Let's skedaddle before we get surrounded again!"

"We can't just run after all the crap this guy's been spouting!" Ryuji objected angrily.

Ranma grimaced. "If he can just keep summoning more reinforcements, we're gunna lose. We've gotta find some other way to handle this."

"Ghh… fine," Ryuji said, reluctantly. "We're gunna be back, though! We'll expose what you really are no matter what!"

As the three turned and bolted for the side passage, they heard Kamoshida's mocking laughter. "Come at me whenever you want, if you don't care about your lives!"

HR.

Several minutes later, the group was slumped outside of their escape vent, the sounds of searching guards echoing through it from inside the castle. "...Anyways," Ryuji said, looking around, and then down at his own clothing. "I don't remember changin' into this!"

"It happened when you summoned your Persona," Ranma offered.

Ryuji looked himself over again, and then struck a pose with his pipe. "Awesome! I look like a badass! Is this… a skull?"

"Quiet," Morgana hissed. "I told you before, when a Persona user confronts the ruler of a palace and becomes a threat to them, this happens."

"Right, that protection from distortion thing," Ryuji nodded. "But why a skull?"

"Your appearance reflects your inner self. It's the rebel soul that slumbers within." Morgana kept whispering.

"So… Ranma's a ninja?"

"It's… not exactly literal," the plush huffed.

"I… don't get it," Ryuji admitted.

Morgana huffed again. "Then stop asking questions you don't understand and accept what you see."

"Easy for you to say," Ryuji muttered, before his eyes widened. "Wait! We're in deep shit!" When Morgana tried to shush him, he continued more quietly. "We got away here, but what happens when we run into Kamoshida back at school?

"Not sure if that's an issue," Ranma offered. "He didn't react to what we did yesterday, right?"

"Right," Morgana agreed. "The Kamoshida here is a shadow, the true self that is suppressed and hidden from the world, and themselves.

"So we're okay," Ryuji let out a sigh of relief. "Now all we've gotta do is-"

"Wait," Morgana interrupted. "I guided you as promised, now you have to help me with my investigation."

"Investigation?" Ryuji asked.

"Of course. Why do you think I helped you and taught you idiots everything. I need to erase the distortion from my body and regain my real form. That's why we must delve deep into Momentos and-"

"Wait hold on a second," Ryuji raised a hand in a warding gesture. "We never agreed to anything like that."

"Huh? Don't tell me… I taught you and fought alongside you this whole time, and you're not going to pay me back? Is this because I look like a Cat? Is that it?!"

"It's got nothin' to do with Cats!" Ranma said, a little too vehemently. "We just didn't know you'd want somethin' for this. Figured you just wanted to screw over Kamoshida for lockin' you up."

"Seriously?!" The little plush asked, incredulous. "I guess this is why you should always explain the deal first."

"Might'a been an idea," Ranma agreed.

"Right, so we're just going to get outta here," Ryuji started, turning to walk off.

"Hey, you can't just do that! Especially you, Ninja guy! You're already part of my master plan!" Morgana exclaimed.

"Ranma," The pigtailed martial artist said, twitching. "He said it like a minute ago. And why the heck did ya' make a master plan involving me when you didn't know my name?"

"I'm a little low on resources here, okay?" The plush defended himself.

"Look, Ryuji's right," Ranma replied. "We didn't sign up for anything… but you did help us. We're gunna need to know what you're talkin' about before we think about helpin,' though."

"Momentos is… hard to explain without seeing it," Morgana started. "I could take you there and-"

"I'm not doin' any more of this today," Ryuji interrupted.

"That was a pretty big fight," Ranma agreed. "Look, we'll be back, alright?"

The plush seemed to consider that for a moment, and then nodded reluctantly. "You'd better!"

HR.

"You have returned to the real world, welcome back."

Ranma glanced around, glad that standing in the same place while using the app had returned them to the same alley they'd left.

Ryuji did the same for a moment before slumping against a brick wall. "Thank god. Man, how casually she says that when we were fighting for our lives really pisses me off."

"I warned you," Ranma returned, not looking at all sympathetic.

"Hey, I'm still glad I did it, even if I'm dead tired," Ryuji disagreed. "We know how bad Kamoshida's overworking the sports teams now, maybe we can do something about it. Talk to 'em or something."

The pigtailed martial artist grunted noncommittally. "Maybe."

"Sorry I dragged you around and made so much noise in there," the blond boy said, after a couple of seconds of silence. "He just pisses me off so much… I mean, I know that's what got me in trouble in the first place, but…"

Ranma shrugged. "The way you handle it's gunna get you beat up, but I get why you're so pissed."

"Yeah, but no one's going to listen to me," Ryuji said. "Maybe if I can get some of the sports teams to admit what's going on, especially if the guy really physically abuses them. I know I've asked a lot, but I need your help on this."

Ranma leaned back, smacking the back of his head against the wall. "Why does this crap keep happening?" He muttered under his breath, eyes closed. "Fine, I'm in, but if it gets to the point we're gunna get in serious trouble, I'm runnin' for it."

"Man, I don't get that." Ryuji snapped. "You just spent an hour fighting shadow monsters, and you're worried about getting suspended or something when a teacher's abusing students?"

"Look, Ryuji…" Ranma started slowly. "If I get kicked outta this school, I'm done, okay? Either I end up back in jail, or I swim to China. Again."

"Again…" Ryuji muttered, before shaking his head. "Eff, I didn't know it was that serious… what did you do, anyways?"

"You want the long version or the short version?" Ranma asked.

"Short version? I'm pretty tired and wanna get home." Ryuji answered, as the two walked out of the alley and onto the sidewalk.

"There was this drunk, bald guy harassing a woman. I tried to get him to leave her alone, and scared him. Guy tripped over a curb and smacked his head off the ground. Suddenly I find out he's some important politician, the woman's taking his side, and I'm under arrest for aggravated assault."

"...Eff." Ryuji said, subdued. "I… I guess I know why you wanted to stay low, now. It's not gunna work, though. Kamoshida had it out for you even before you pissed him off. If we don't stop that asshole you'll be expelled in a couple months anyways."

"One track mind, huh?" Ranma asked. "Fine, I got it. I said I'd help you."

"Yeah! We'll start lookin' tomorrow," the blond boy exclaimed, shaking off the somber mood. "This is gunna work out, trust me."

As the other spoke excitedly, Ranma felt the world around him fade. He stopped walking as a blue butterfly fluttered through the air before him, circling Ryuji as the other boy pulled ahead. A woman's voice, the first one he'd heard the day before, before his persona awoke, began to speak. "I am thou, Thou art I. Thou hast acquired a new vow."

Ranma looked around for the source of the voice, but saw nothing. The world around him seemed to be frozen again, just like on that day in the intersection. "It shall become the wings of rebellion That breaketh thy chains of captivity."

Digging his phone out of his pocket, he blinked at an image of a card which was spinning slowly on its screen. "With the birth of the Chariot Persona, I have obtained the winds of blessing that shall lead to freedom and new power." With that, the card on screen was bound with several chains, and Ryuji's name appeared next to it.

As the world came back to life and Ryuji noticed that he was no longer following, Ranma squinted at the screen. "The heck's this?"

"What's up?" The other boy asked as he walked back to meet him.

"Got me," Ranma answered, turning the device to let him see. "I just heard this voice, and then…" He shrugged helplessly.

"Did… you just roll a gacha or something?" Ryuji asked. "Chariot sounds pretty badass… but I'm only a one star? That's kinda lame."

"You're gettin better at this, that didn't seem to bother you as much," Ranma observed.

"After it sends me to another universe, it rolling me as part of some weird Gacha isn't really a blip," Ryuji shrugged. "I like the sound of the word, though. 'Confidant.' Sounds all badass and professional."

"...right…" Ranma replied, slowly. "I think we should probably get home."

"Wait, just a sec," Ryuji said, quickly digging his own phone out of his pocket. "Lemme get your number. Chat ID too."

"Chat… what?" Ranma asked, tilting his head. "As for the number, I think I've got a paper with it written someplace…"

"Paper, you… You know what? I'll help you out. Let's go grab somethin' to eat before we head home and I'll transfer the stuff for you."

"Not gunna say no to free food," Ranma nodded.

"Hey, who said I was buyin'?" Ryuji demanded. "I mean, I was gunna, but still… Whatever, let's just go."

HR.

When Ranma opened the Cafe's door, he was expecting Sojiro's narrow eyed look. "So no magical bullshit today?" The older man asked, polishing a glass.

"Actually yeah," Ranma admitted. Being honest with the guy had worked out well enough so far.

"So you missed school again." The narrow eyes were now accompanied with a frown.

"Nah, got through school," Ranma disagreed.

Sojiro grunted. "That's fine, then."

"...Not gunna ask?" The martial artist was honestly surprised.

"Don't wanna know. So long as you're getting to school and staying out of trouble with the police, I'm doing my job."

Ranma took a moment to process that, before a chime came from his pocket. Pulling out his phone, he tapped the blinking message app icon Ryuji had shown him.

[Can you see this?]

[YES]

[Still on cruise control for cool, huh?]

[SHUT UP WHAT DO YOU WANT]

[Yeash, chill. Just checking we're still good for tomorrow.]

[YEAH WERE FINE]

[Good to hear, We're gunna get that Kamoshida! See you tomorrow.]

"It's like watching a monkey on a typewriter…"

"Huh?" Ranma looked up to see Sojiro giving him a bemused look after typing out a quick goodbye to Ryuji.

"I think that's honestly worse than how I used one when I first got it," the older man chuckled.

"Tech wasn't exactly a priority on the road," Ranma shrugged as he put the phone away and headed for the stairs. "Am I lockin' up tonight or you got it?"

"I've got it," Sojiro called back.

Heading up to his room, Ranma caught sight of a small brown book laying on the dresser and grimaced at it. He apparently had to keep it up to date as part of his parole, and the previous day he'd just scribbled something about missing the morning classes because of the curse, which wasn't entirely wrong. He wasn't sure what to write today, though.

Opening the book and taking the pen tied to the side, he squinted down at a blank page for a few minutes, before scribbling quickly. "04/12. School was boring. Teachers hate me, as expected. Gym teacher's a real piece of work. I made a friend, I think. What's a Gacha?"

Deciding that the entry was good enough, he dropped the book back onto the dresser and flopped onto the bed, exhausted from the events of the day.

END.

For those who care, here's Ranma's actual social stat layout as of now.

Knowledge 1: Oblivious

Guts 4: Dauntless

Proficiency 3: Skilled

Kindness 0: Offensive

Charm 1: Existent

If you notice an inconsistency in Ranma's Persona's skills, -I've got to stop accidentally typing Servant- it's not a mistake.

Thanks for reading! We hope you enjoyed, and if you did, or didn't, be sure to leave us a review telling us what you thought.


	3. Chapter 3: Friendship is Mahou

Fools Rush In…

By JSB and Weebee

Chapter 3: Friendship is Mahou.

Ranma woke with a groan, hearing the chime of his cellphone from where he'd discarded it on the pile of boxes next to his bed. Blinking the sun from his eyes, he reached over and grabbed the annoying device before raising it to his face. "So this is what he was talkin' about?" The pigtailed martial artist muttered groggily to himself as the card and chains graphic he'd seen the day before spun on the screen, the message next to it claiming that the 'Fool' confidant had raised to level one.

The previous night, he'd had yet another dream about that damned purple prison cell, where The Nose had basically ignored his questions, as usual, and ranted at him both about using people for power, and making genuine friendships, as if the two things weren't basically contradictory.

"Is this supposed ta be his?" he irritably swiped the notification away before swinging his legs out of bed. "I can really feel the love from the ball and chain."

Half way through getting ready for school, he heard a voice from downstairs. "If you're awake up there I could use some help opening!"

"Yeah, yeah…" he muttered to himself, pulling the school jacket on and glaring down at it before heading downstairs.

HR.

"Well, this is exciting…" Ranma mumbled, as he and Ryuji sat at the side of the gym, classmates around them standing and cheering for the volleyball game on the court or just sitting around the edges. They'd barely gotten to class in the morning when Ms. Kawakami had announced the volleyball rally, and told them all to head down to the gym to change into their red and white athletic gear. Ranma had wondered why he'd been issued a set given he was exempt from physical education, but had luckily just shoved the stuff in his locker so he didn't have to carry it around. He'd still opted to change in one of the bathrooms rather than risking a locker room, though.

The boy had been vaguely interested in the competition until he'd found out that the first game would be teachers versus students, and not even the proper volleyball team. "At least we're missing class, I guess…"

"Feh," the blond replied. "Give me geopolitics over this any day." He winced as a hard return knocked one of the students to the ground. "Just look at that smug bastard."

"He's just playing the game," Ranma shrugged. The guy had spiked it a bit hard, but then, at Furinkan gym classes usually ended with at least one exploded piece of sports equipment, especially when he and Ukyo were on opposite teams.

"Feh…" the other boy repeated. As the game went on uneventfully, he yawned hugely, clearly trying to make it as obvious as possible. As if in response, after a chaotic scramble for the ball, there was a loud smacking sound and the ball cannoned into the face of the boy who had had trouble returning it previously, sending him sprawling. Ryuji cursed under his breath and looked to Ranma, expecting the same look of indifference as before. Instead he saw narrowed eyes and a furrowed brow. "Huh?"

"That wasn't an accident," the black haired boy said calmly, legs uncoiling and propelling him to his feet.

"What do you mean?" Ryuji blinked.

"That hit was aimed," Ranma replied, tursely, quickly tossing off his track jacket before walking forward as the teacher made a show of fussing over the injured boy. A couple of other students in the wings went to help the boy stand at the teacher's request and carried him out of the Gym.

"Alright, let's resume the match!" Kamoshida yelled back to everyone.

"Hey," Ranma called, waving a hand.

The teacher looked over at him, raising an eyebrow.

"You need a substitute for that guy, right?"

The older man looked him up and down for a silent moment before smiling. "If you're game, sure," he said cheerfully. "Thanks for volunteering."

The rest of the team was actually looking pretty nervous as Ranma joined them, a few pairs of eyes flicking between Mr. Kamoshida and the place where the other boy had fallen.

"Hey," Ranma said, quietly. "You guys are about to get some real easy set ups. Whatever happens, take 'em, okay?"

The rest of his team looked at him, confused, but one of them nodded hesitantly.

"Right!" Kamoshida announced. "Let's get going!"

The whistle blew and one of the other teachers served the ball. For the first return, the game went as normal. Ranma stood behind the rest of the team as the ball arched back over the net, one of the students having fumbled it a bit and hit it in a slow arc.

Mr. Kamoshida immediately leapt forward, one arm coiling back and slamming into the ball with another loud crack. 'A little obvious there,' Ranma thought as the projectile sped straight at him, snapping his head forward. The cold leather made contact with his forehead, and rather than it bouncing off, it snapped his head backwards as though he'd been punched, his legs flying out from under him.

"Return it!" He yelled as he hit the gym floor, the ball virtually hanging in the air. The boy who had nodded at him before immediately did so, hitting the ball as hard as he could with a bump as the pigtailed martial artist rolled to his feet, stretching his neck and rubbing a bit at the red imprint of the ball on his forehead.

"Man, are you alright?" One of the other players asked. "That looked like it hurt."

"Yeah, I'm..." Ranma started, wincing as he watched the ball land out of bounds on the other end of the court. "...fine."

"Alright, you heard him!" The teacher called, a slightly strained tone audible in his voice. "Let's continue!" The teachers served, the students returned, Kamoshida spiked the ball, and once more, Ranma intercepted with his face, an almost perfect repetition of the previous chain of events, except this time his team was ready for it as he rolled away, setting the ball up and returning it properly.

Given that the rallies so far had never gotten to this stage, the teacher who was in position to receive reacted too slowly, and the ball bounced to a stop on the floor between his feet.

"You'd think he'd learn…" Ranma muttered as, after the students' team served the next round, Kamoshida immediately prepared to send the ball right back at him, with almost exactly the same results. This time, however, the teachers weren't quite as lax, managing to recover the ball and set it up. Kamoshida swung back to send it flying over the net again on a different angle.

"Nope!" Ranma yelled, leaping into the air to intercept the projectile right after it crossed the net. He'd timed his jump so that it impacted with his chest rather than his head, and though it felt a little like being kicked by a mule, he didn't fall back. Instead the ball bounced back towards the teachers with nearly the same amount of force. The pigtailed martial artist managed to regain his wits quickly enough to land gently just on his side of the net wearing an infuriating smirk. He could actually hear Ryuji laughing.

HR.

"So, not that I didn't find that insanely satisfying, but what happened to keeping a low profile?" Ryuji asked, as he and Ranma walked out of the gym. "You realize that you just added, like, three rings to the giant red target on your back, right?"

"Yeah, but…" Ranma started, before slowing to a stop, several of the other students who'd decided to skip the rest of the rally walking around him. "I… crap…"

"You… just figured that out now, didn't you?" The other boy asked, flatly.

Ranma didn't respond for a moment, just jamming his hands in his pockets and walking, before he sighed. "I just… reacted without thinking," he admitted, reluctantly. "Same thing that got me in this mess, I guess."

"Well, look on the bright side," Ryuji offered. "That probably made you way more popular with some of the students. Probably some clubs too, come to think of it. Who knew a person could jump that high?"

"I really hope not," Ranma replied, frowning at the possibility. "So, what now?"

"I dunno," Ryuji thought for a moment. "I'm thinking we've gotta talk to some members of the sports teams, but I've got no idea who since we didn't go down and check."

"Stop lookin' at me like that," Ranma grumbled. "The trap coulda been a lot worse if we'd given Kamoshida more time to prep. Besides, there are a couple places we can start."

At the other boy's blank look, he continued, "We did see at least one of 'em when we were first there, and there's that guy Kamoshida spiked. He seemed to be targeting him same as he was me, is he on one of the teams?"

"Mishima?" The blond boy responded. "Yeah, I think he's on the volleyball team. "He's also in your class, so maybe you should go talk to him and I get the other guy?"

"Right," Ranma nodded. "Probably in the infirmary."

"Good, so we both know what we're doing," Ryuji said, before taking off down the hall at a slow jog.

"Yeah, 'cept I have no idea where the infirmary is," Ranma said belatedly, groaning to himself. Walking a bit further down the hall, he approached a group of two talking girls and a boy, but they abruptly became quiet as he neared, shooting nervous glances between themselves.

"Hey, you guys know where the infirmary is?" He asked, casually. None of them answered him, just looking at him apprehensively for an uncomfortable few seconds before he sighed, turning to leave.

"I hear he carries a knife everywhere," One of them could be heard whispering to another behind him.

"Shh, Yuka, he'll hear you," the other hissed back.

"...Way more popular… right," Ranma muttered under his breath.

HR.

"What is this even supposed to be?" Sadayo Kawakami asked herself, squinting at what someone laughingly called a kanji. The rest of the sentence was, for the most part, legible, but the mystery word was placed in the exact right spot to make it nearly impossible to figure out from context. "Well, that's not my job anyway," she muttered, drawing a small red X next to the line and jotting a note about terrible handwriting before continuing on.

Hearing a knock at the door, she looked up, curious about who would be visiting the faculty office on what was supposed to be a free day. "Hmm, speak of the devil," she drawled, spotting the pigtailed boy leaning against the doorframe. "Saotome-kun, could you tell me what this is supposed to be?"

He'd been in the middle of opening his mouth when she spoke, but stopped and walked over to the desk, squinting at the paper and tilting his head back and forth. "I… got no idea," he admitted. "I might've been half asleep."

"At least you're honest," she sighed. "So what do you… what happened to your face?!"

The student shrugged, rubbing one hand over the reddish indent marks all over his forehead and cheeks. "Got hit by a volleyball… a couple dozen times."

"You participated in the rally?" She asked, surprised. "Why?"

"Because I'm an idiot, apparently," he said, an indecipherable expression flitting across his face for a moment.

"Well I could have told you that." The words were out before she'd thought about them, and she winced. 'Great move, Kawakami, inspiring,' she thought to herself, before the boy laughed.

"Pretty sure you're not supposed ta say that, but whatever," he shrugged. "Can you point me to the infirmary?"

"On the first floor, left side, near the school store," she replied, quickly.

"Thanks." He turned to leave, waving casually over a shoulder..

"Saotome-kun," She called out before he could pass through the door. "You're… not planning on joining the volleyball team, are you? It might not be the best idea."

"So it's true, huh?" As he turned to look at her, she was already looking down intently at her papers.

"I'm just giving a suggestion, Saotome-kun," she said, firmly.

"Yeah, I got it. Wasn't plannin' on it, thanks." His footsteps left the room, the door sliding closed behind him with a soft thud.

Kawakami sighed.

HR.

[You talk to that guy yet?"]

[NO NOT AT INFERMARY]

[Dude, you really need to learn how to text.]

[I'll meet you at the courtyard.]

[OKAY]

HR.

"Hey, can I talk to you for a second?" Ranma turned as he heard the person calling out to him just as he was about to push open the door leading out into the courtyard. The blonde twin-tailed girl who sat in front of him in class was walking quickly towards him.

"Uh yeah, sure. Taka… something, right?"

"Takamaki. I sit right in front of you." She crossed her arms, frowning at him. "So what's up with you, anyway?"

"Um… nothing?" He asked raising an eyebrow in confusion.

"I know you lied about why you were late that first day," she contradicted, her glare trying to pierce right through him.

He shrugged. "Does it matter?"

"It might," She said, eyes somehow narrowing even further. "First there are all those rumours about you, then that stunt you pulled in the volleyball game today. What was that supposed to accomplish?"

"Other than pissing Kamoshida off? Not much," he responded bluntly. "Might think twice before tossing volleyballs at people's heads again, though I doubt it."

"What have you got against him? It can't all be about that conversation yesterday, can it?" The girl shook her head, looking resigned. "Look… I… sort of understand, but you're not going to accomplish anything doing this. You'll just make things worse."

"Got told somethin' like that already today," Ranma admitted, turning his head slightly to look in the direction of the faculty office.

"Jus-"

"Hey, Takamaki, what are you doin' here?" Ryuji's voice suddenly cut across the girl's statement, the boy jogging up to the two.

"Just talking to one of my classmates," She responded. "Why, what are you doing here?"

"Met this guy a couple days ago," Ryuji shrugged. "He's pretty cool, actually."

"I… see," Takamaki said, slowly. "So are you the one who's got him convinced he needs to fight Kamoshida?"

"I really don't need much encouragement to dislike that guy," Ranma interjected.

"Don't bother," Ryuji snorted. "Ann here's all buddy buddy with the bastard. You'd dump the guy if you knew about half the crap he's doing behind your back."

"Behind my back?" The twin-tailed girl asked, one fist clenching at her side. "What's that supposed to mean?" Ryuji muttered something quietly that neither of the others heard, before Takamaki sighed.

"Ryuji, both you and the new guy have enough rumours swirling around you already. You really shouldn't be trying so hard to make it worse!" Turning on her heal, she left before the blond boy could fire off another retort.

"That was… uh… you know her?" Ranma ventured.

Ryuji shrugged. "We went to junior high together, that's all." Shaking his head, he continued, "Now let's go find Mishima."

"Got any idea where he is?" Ranma asked.

"Well, the end of school announcement was about five minutes ago, so… probably the entrance."

HR.

Ranma met the eyes of another student leaving the school as he leaned against the wall next to the door, Ryuji squatting next to him. The student immediately turned their head to look away. "Fairly sure it's obvious we're waitin' for someone," he commented, eyes flicking from face to face.

"I mean we are. It's not really a problem." Ryuji countered, watching just as intently.

"It is when we're the two most known delinquents in the school. And I've got a reputation for carrying knives for some reason."

"Well, you do…" The Blond boy said.

"And you have a lead pipe, but I'm pretty sure none of these guys have seen us in that castle. ...At least I hope they haven't."

"Quiet, I think he's coming," Ryuji hissed. Amongst the crowd of students leaving was one of Ranma's classmates. The black haired kid was walking slowly, trying to keep from moving one arm which had been injured in the game that morning, and sporting a lightly discolored bruise on one cheek with a bandaid on the other.

Ryuji sprang to his feet, walking towards the boy. "Hey, got a second?"

The boy looked between the blond who was approaching him and Ranma, who had just pushed off of the wall to join him. "Sakamoto?" He asked, obviously nervous. "And you, too…"

Ranma really wished people would stop looking at him like that. Even at Furinkan, where the average student had known full well that he could lift over three hundred pounds, no one had really been afraid of him, save maybe that Gosunkugi guy.

"Relax," Ryuji said, smiling. "We just want to talk to you a bit." This seemed to do the opposite of making the boy relaxed, his eyes flicking around for an escape from the situation. "Kamoshida's been coaching you, right?" Ryuji continued, heavily emphasizing the third word. "You sure it's not just physical abuse?"

Ranma smacked his forehead. "Subtle…" he muttered to himself, irritably.

"Certainly not!" The other boy seemed to have gotten some backbone now, straightening up, his eyes narrowing.

"So how'd you strain the muscles in your left leg," Ranma chipped in, deciding that if Ryuji was going to be this blatant, he may as well follow along.

"Huh?" Ryuji blinked.

"The way he's walking, he strained the muscles in the calf of his left lower leg, I'd say about two days ago," Ranma said. "Even the ol' man would be having me stay off the leg for at least a while. Definitely not playin' a game a couple days later."

"It… it's fine," The boy stammered. "It doesn't hurt at all!"

"Man, when did you become a doctor?" Ryuji asked, startled.

"It… kinda worries me you were on the track team and didn't know about that…" Ranma returned, dubiously.

"Dude, I'm normal. I know normal things. I don't know how to look at someone and diagnose their injuries."

"Look, I really have to be going," the nervous boy said, trying to edge around the two.

Ryuji put a hand out, trying to stop him.

"Is Kamoshida forcing you to keep quiet?"

The other boy looked between the two of them, and then finally opened his mouth. "That's…"

"What's going on here?" A confident, older voice cut the answer off, Kamoshida moving towards the three down the hall. "Mishima, it's time for practice!"

"I-I'm not feeling well today," the nervous boy stammered.

"What?" The teacher asked, tilting his head slightly. "Maybe you're better off quitting, then. You're never going to improve that crappy form unless you show up to practice."

"He said he's not feelin' well!" Ryuji suddenly yelled, leaning forward into the older man's personal space. "He could do real damage practicin' with all of those injuries, yeah?"

The teacher just calmly stepped away from the angry student, turning back to the nervous one. "Well Mishima, are you coming to practice or not?"

"Just warnin' ya," Ranma interjected. "If you get unlucky with that leg, you might not be playing anyway."

The boy paused for a long moment, looking between Ranma and the teacher before his head slumped. "I'll go."

"Just try to-" Ranma started, before the teacher turned on him with an intense glare.

"I'm the coach here," he snarled. "You should just keep out of the way. Both of you. With the amount of trouble you've caused recently, you're on very thin ice."

Mishima hurried away as his coach stared daggers at the two delinquents. "You especially," He pointed at Ranma. "Didn't the principal tell you to keep in line?"

Ranma thought of several different retorts, most of which compared the man unfavorably to the Furinkan faculty, instructors he'd had in the past, principal kuno, and even his father, but eventually he settled on "You have an amazing spike."

The teacher's teeth clenched together, and eyes twitched several times, before he took a slow, calming breath. His reasserted calm was soon tested, however, when the student in front of him turned calmly and began to walk away.

"Wait, Ranma, what?" Ryuji yelped, following his new friend.

HR.

"What the hell was that? I'm fairly sure your profile now rivals Gojira, at least on his shit list! I think he was gonna have a heart attack!" Ryuji demanded, as he and Ranma walked slowly away from the school. "When you turned around he looked like he was going to try and murder you!"

"I stopped bein' able to get away with that this morning," Ranma said, reluctantly. "Should probably get ready to pack my bags, I guess."

"What?" Ryuji asked, shocked.

"The guy's got the principal in his pocket, I'm pretty sure, and the other teachers know what he's doing and aren't doin' crap. Least Kawakami does." Ranma sighed. "He'll have me expelled the second he gets, or thinks of, an excuse. ...Maybe you too." The martial artist slumped down on a thick concrete window ledge of a store near the school, bringing one hand as hard as he could into the glass. At least one advantage of the damned moxibustion was that he couldn't break anything.

"Are… are you okay, man?" Ryuji asked, uncertain.

"Why do I keep doing this?" Ranma finally asked, after a few seconds of uncomfortable silence. "I find the biggest asshole on school grounds and make it my life's mission to piss him off, within two days. Is it a talent, or something? Do I got a sign around my neck that says 'fight this guy'? I tried not to, I honestly did! I just couldn't stop myself from tryin' to take that smarmy bastard down a peg, especially after that fight yesterday..."

"To be fair, he was spreading those rumors before you even showed up." Ryuji mentioned.

"Right…" Ranma sighed. "Look, I'm just… sorry if I drag you down with me, alright?"

Ryuji laughed, clapping the other boy on the shoulder, rather shocked when Ranma doubled over from the force. Raising his hand sheepishly, he continued with his thought regardless. "Hey, I'd give a lot to be able to see what I saw today. And who knows, it might work out. We ain't expelled yet!"

The two fell into another uncomfortable silence, this one much longer, as they trudged towards the train station. Eventually, Ryuji had to break it. "Look, man… I'm sorry. You told me this was your last chance, and… I think I might have helped screw it up for you. Maybe we can just… try the low profile thing? I mean, we've pissed Kamoshida off, there's no doubt about that, and I want him to pay, but if you get expelled, that's it, right? It'll probably be hell, but… we can stop. Stop asking questions, go to class, hope he doesn't do anything the rest of the year. Maybe we can make it through."

Ranma frowned. He remembered Ryuji's confident exclamation the day before, and this sudden turnaround. He was also fairly sure it wouldn't work. Even so, he wanted to agree. He knew, realistically, that if he wanted to escape the police couldn't catch him. Getting out of Japan, searching for a cure to the moxibustion, would be easy. The problem was that he could never come back. He wouldn't be able to see Akane, the Tendos, or anyone else in Nerima again, and that was the only reason he was sticking around and trying to deal with any of this.

"Look," Ryuji said, jolting him out of his thoughts. "We'll… talk tomorrow, okay?"

Ranma just nodded, and the two parted ways to head for their trains.

HR.

Ryuji's phone went off as he was buying a ticket for the train home. He had to complete the transaction first, but removed the device as soon as he could, wondering if his mother had messaged him to pick up groceries or something. Flicking the phone out of lock mode, he blinked as a strangely familiar screen popped up before him.

"Confidant Unlocked, level 1. Ranma Saotome, The Fool."

"I… huh? Is this that gacha thing he had on his phone?" the boy prodded the image, not seeing any obvious buttons, but all it did was say something about Ranma defending him from an attack or something before vanishing.

"What in the…" he muttered, and then blinked. There actually WAS a flashing message icon from his mom. Apparently they needed a carton of milk. Shrugging off the strange event, he tucked the phone back into his pocket and headed for the train.

HR.

The night was a blur. Ranma barely said a word to Sojiro, and didn't write anything in the journal he'd been given. He'd gone to find the local bath house, since going another day with the terrible shower at the cafe would probably drive him insane, but otherwise nothing really stuck out in his memory.

He had no dreams that night.

HR.

"Man, that first game yesterday, that was wild, huh?" One female student said to another, both of them walking in front of Ranma as he made his way to school the next morning.

"Yeah, Mr. Kamoshida was dominating for a while, but then that thing with the transfer student…" The second student stated. "What was he doing, anyways?"

"I dunno," The first student said, "But did you notice Kamoshida didn't manage another point for the rest of the match? I mean, the teachers won eventually, but…"

"I hear they're calling the guy the 'Spike Canceler,' or something," the second student laughed. "I think it's some old anime reference…"

"Anime is right. You'd think a guy would stay down after getting hit that much."

Ranma did his best to ignore the rest of the conversation as the group entered the building.

HR.

He'd actually paid attention. When the teacher had asked a question, he'd known the answer, because he'd spent his time between classes reading the textbook. Most people would have been happy about this, and Ranma was… sort of, but it still felt kind of wrong. He'd gone through the entire day acting like a perfectly normal student. He'd even eaten his lunch in class. The girl who sat in front of him, Takamaki, had given him a few speculative looks, but hadn't turned around to talk to him, and the rest of the class were all too eager to ignore him.

It was… kind of maddening.

Standing from his desk at the end of the school day, Ranma carefully packed his books and assignments into his school bag. He was almost at the door to the courtyard when he spotted her. A girl was standing there, gazing fixedly at the screen of her phone, but not moving to tap anything. The two of them stood in awkward silence for a moment before the girl looked up and stepped a little backwards, startled.

"Oh, um, I'm sorry," She said quietly. "I'm in the way, aren't I?"

"It's… not a problem," Ranma said, blinking as their eyes met. The girl seemed… sad, somehow, and that sort of startled him. Akane, and many other people had said that he was about as bad at gauging feelings as a rock, so it had to be pretty bad if he could see it. "You okay?"

"Oh, I'm fine," the girl said, trying to look a bit more cheerful. "You don't look familiar. Are you the new student from Class 2-D?"

"Yeah, that'd be me." Ranma tugged subconsciously on his pigtail. "And no, I don't carry around a knife."

The girl actually laughed a bit at that. "Don't worry too much about the rumors. My best friend's actually got a similar problem. People say terrible things about her all because of her looks. I.." She looked down, flushing a little. "Sorry, I didn't mean to ramble like that."

"Nah, it's fine," Ranma said, waving a hand and forcing a smile. "Kinda good to know I ain't the only one in that boat, right?"

"Y-yeah, I guess so?" She sounded more uncertain than anything else. "I should probably go to practice. I'll see you around."

"Hey," Ranma said, reluctantly. "You're not on the volleyball team, are you?" When she nodded slowly, he tried to open his mouth, but the words caught in his throat. Eventually, after a few seconds of silence, he managed a "Good luck."

"Thank you," She said, and nodded again before heading off. Ranma looked after her for a moment, before pushing the glass doors open and walking out into the courtyard.

"Hey!" The voice was familiar, but when Ranma turned his head, the person he saw definitely wasn't, at least not entirely. "R-Ryuji?" He asked, shocked.

"Hey, I told you I'd go all out on this, right?" The other boy asked. "So, I look nerdy enough?" His open fronted uniform and loud english shirt was gone, replaced with regulation standard, and his hair, usually a spiked, bright yellow blond, was now black and hanging loosely to just below his ears.

"Why…" It was a small gesture, really, but Ranma knew that his own hair was important to him. Some had said unreasonably so, and given how Ryuji had styled it, he was sure the same was true of him.

"Dude, you saved my life," the other boy said, seriously. "Probably more than once! We're gonna get through this even if we die of boredom trying."

"You really don't stick out at all." Ranma noted, a genuine slight smirk forming on his face. "Seriously. I barely recognized you."

"Right," Ryuji nodded. "And even if we've gotta be good kids at school, we can go out and do stuff. This ain't going to be that bad. Just a couple years and to heck with Kamoshida."

"...Thanks, Ryuji," Ranma repeated. "And yeah, I've been meanin' to do some exploring around here. I need to find a place to-"

"I've finally found you!" The voice sounded oddly familiar, even though neither boy could spot anyone they recognized in the small groups of people milling about the courtyard.

"Down here!" A very put upon voice announced, from somewhere near their feet.

"Is that… a talking cat?" Ryuji asked, slowly.

"Sure seems like it," Ranma replied, something about the statement striking him as off, but unsure exactly what it was.

"It doesn't matter what it seems like, I'm not a cat!" the animal in question yelled. "Don't tell me you've forgotten already? You promised to come back and hear out what I wanted, remember?"

"You're Morgana?" Ranma asked, finally placing the voice. "It's only been a couple days, and a lot's been goin' on. You look kinda... different, though."

"I changed when I emerged from the Metaverse into this world. Still, I'm glad you recognized me. I always knew you were the smarter of the two, glad I caught you alone," Morgana preaned.

"Hey!" Ryuji yelled, causing the group to get a few strange looks from people nearby.

"Oh…" Morgana looked the other boy up and down, and then blinked. "Why do you look like that? Does your appearance change in this world too?"

"Just tryin' a new style," Ryuji responded, crossing his arms irritably.

"Well, it does look better," Morgana nodded. "But that's not important right now! We've got to talk about what I need, like you promised."

"Yeah, that's great 'n all," Ryuji said, "But I think you've got a tail." The ca- animal gave him a look that perfectly encapsulated the thought that Ryuji's statement was the dumbest thing in history, before the incognito punk pointed behind it, where a teacher and a student wearing a disciplinary committee armband were exiting the school, one carrying a small steel cage.

"We should probably go somewhere else for this conversation," Ranma suggested.

"Right," Ryuji nodded, grabbing Morgana by the scruff of his neck and holding him up. "Quick, put him in your bag."

"Hey!" The indignant animal howled. "How dare you treat me like Hmmphmphm!" Ranma closed the bag over its head, zipping it. Taking the weight, he sighed in relief when it turned out to be just light enough that he could carry it.

HR.

"Finally!" Morgana yelled, as the bag he had been carried in sprang open. "It's tight and cramped in there!" Instead of the nice courtyard they were once in a few minutes ago, he found himself in a dank alley.

"Sorry 'bout that," Ranma said, lifting the soft animal free of the bag, and then immediately freezing. Since Morgana was still being held in front of him, hanging by the front shoulders, this got an immediate reaction.

"Hey, what are you doing?!"

"You're… a cat," Ranma said, with a sense of dawning realization that would normally be associated with some divine truth learned after centuries of meditation.

"I am not a cat!" Morgana objected, the reaction almost an instinct.

"But…" Ranma squinted at him, and then brought him in close to his face, sniffing and rubbing the fur against his cheek. "It's so soft and fluffy…"

"Uh… dude? You're kinda going nuts here," Ryuji said, edging a little bit away from the babbling martial artist.

"I said stop that!" Morgana yelled, lashing out with a paw and scratching Ranma across the face. This got the desired result, freeing him from Ranma's grasp and allowing him to land neatly on the concrete ground, but Ranma just kept looking at him. "I think I might want to retract what I said about you being the smart one," Morgana grumped.

"I… think I'm gonna need a bit of an explanation here," Ryuji agreed.

Ranma shook his head, seeming to snap out of his odd trance. "Uh… yeah, sorry about that. I mean, usually, I'm kinda terrified of c-c…" He seemed to choke on the word he was trying to say, before eventually spitting out "Cats. I still hate sayin' the word, even. But with Morgana here, I'm fine. Guess I got sorta carried away, sorry."

"You're… terrified of cats?" Ryuji asked, dubiously.

"Yeah, and there's a good reason," Ranma said, "But… I really don't wanna get into it right now."

"If you two are done?" Morgana asked, tail lashing back and forth, nose slightly raised into the air. "As I said before, I originally helped the two of you because I wanted your help in return. I don't really think you'll be too reluctant, either, since both of you seem to have a problem with Kamoshida."

"You can say that again," Ryuji muttered, darkly.

"Simply put," Morgana began, "There's a treasure in the middle of Kamoshida's castle that I want. Stealing this treasure will cause the Palace to collapse and dissipate, which may also be useful to the two of you."

"Huh?" Ryuji asked. "Why would that be good for us?"

"Because," Morgana said, beginning to pace across the dirty ground between the two boys, "The palace is made up of all of Kamoshida's impure and twisted desires. If it collapses, all of those desires will disappear."

"So he'd just… be less of a jerk?" the newly dark haired boy asked, brightening.

"Not… exactly," Morgana replied. "It will strip all of those desires away, yes, but without them, all of the justifications for his actions that they allowed would vanish too. All of his crimes would become evident to him at once."

"Okay," Ryuji's expression was almost manic now. "That… sounds amazing."

"Yeah, so what's the catch," Ranma cut in. "Sounds too good to be true."

"The catch… yeah," Morgana said, sighing. "The catch is that it's possible that some of the desires that keep him alive could vanish with the palace. Like the desire to eat, or even the desire to wake up and leave the house in the morning. Without proper care, the man could die."

Ryuji's jubilation abruptly vanished, and Ranma just sighed. "So we get Kamoshida off our backs, but have a decent chance of killing him," the pigtailed boy summed up.

"I… I mean, it's not a sure thing, though," Ryuji said, though his voice sounded weak. "With all that he's done…"

"No," Ranma said, the reluctance clear in his voice. "If there's any real chance that we could kill the guy, it's… too much risk." He continued, speaking faster, as though trying to convince himself. "I mean, Kamoshida's not even the only issue here. I might just screw up because I'm not good enough at school, or piss off someone else. If we can just stay out of his way, none of it'll matter. It just ain't worth it."

"Yeah," Ryuji nodded firmly. "I got ya. Sorry, Morgana, we can't do this."

"Are you two the biggest idiots possible? Nothing about this could be traced to you! You've seen his palace, what he's like, do you really believe he's just going to leave you alone?"

"I think that doesn't really matter," Ranma replied. "If I kill someone just to get what I want…" He seemed at a loss for words, before shrugging. "I… just can't."

"Uuugh!" The cat growled, and then dashed out of the alley, leaving the two humans behind.

"You sure that was okay?" Ryuji asked, looking after the disappearing black speck.

"I wouldn't hold it against ya if you went after him," Ranma admitted.

"I said we'd give this way a solid try. And we haven't even really started." The newly black haired boy sighed, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Should probably get home and actually try to finish an assignment before Ms. Kawakami yells at me over it."

Ranma nodded, and the two left the alley, headed for the train station.

HR.

Ranma stepped off of his first train, still not really used to the crowded compartments and bustling platform. Making his way up the stairs, he heard one, familiar voice raised above the others. As he reached the top, he spotted a girl with two blonde pigtails, talking on a cellphone and scowling.

"Takamaki?" He asked, approaching.

"And you call yourself a teacher?" She was saying, her hand shaking on the phone.

"...Of course, why's everything about that bastard lately?" Ranma muttered under his breath.

"This has nothing to do with Shiho!" There were tears in the corners of her eyes now, and her voice cracked on the last word, before she lowered the phone with a frustrated growl, crouching to stuff it into her bag.

"Hey, you okay?" The girl looked up from her bag, frowning at him.

"Were you eavesdropping?" She accused angrily.

Ranma shrugged. "Kinda hard not to do that when I could hear you from the bottom of the stairs." The comeback escaped his lips before he could stop it, as usual. "Damn it… Look, sorry, alright?"

"Yeah, well… I guess you had a point. Was I really that loud?" As the boy nodded, she sighed explosively, before looking away and muttering "Don't worry about it."

"Yeah, I'll see ya later," Ranma started, turning to continue on his way.

"Wait!" He turned back, confused, the blonde girl fidgeting with her fingers. "I… I'm sorry, I know this is stupid, and you've got no reason to, and you hardly know me… I just… I need someone to talk at right now."

'Talk at?' Ranma thought, his confusion mounting. "Yeah, sure, I guess… Probably shouldn't do it in the middle of the train station, though."

The girl nodded rapidly, gesturing the pigtailed boy to follow her. The two quickly made their way through the crowd, as she obviously had a destination in mind. It turned out to be the 'Big Bang Burger'' on the shopping street outside of the station.

Ranma winced as he placed his order. His initial supply of yen was dwindling pretty badly by this point.

The girl only ordered water, nursing it while he started on his meal. "Now I feel… kind of stupid," She started in a quiet, sad voice. "I've got no idea what to say. It was just… a stupid argument."

"Kamoshida, right?" Ranma guessed, after eating a handful of fries.

"So you've heard the rumors too?" She stared moodily into her glass.

"No, but it always seems to have something to do with that guy around that school."

She laughed, but there wasn't really any humor in it. "To think yesterday I was warning you not to get involved." Taking a long drink, she set the glass down, staring into it once again. "The rumor's that we've been getting it on. I hear everybody talk. That's nowhere near the truth, but… that was him on the other line."

"I'm guessing he wants it to be," Ranma said bluntly.

"You… really don't beat around the bush, do you?" She asked. "But yes. I avoided giving him my number for as long as I could, but now… he wants me to come over to his place after this." She'd been moving a napkin around the table with her finger as she talked, and abruptly clenched it in her hand. "You know what that means, right?"

"Got an idea," Ranma nodded. "So why're you considering it rather than telling him to dry up and die?"

"Could you stop being blunt for, like, five minutes?" She was glaring at him, now.

"Not… really," he admitted. "I've been told by a lot of people I'm not too sensitive. Tryin' ta work on it, but…" He shrugged.

"Right…" She sighed again, flicking her napkin ball across the table at him. "It's Shiho. She's on the girls volleyball team. She was so happy when she made the starting squad, but then I found out… why she'd made it there."

Ranma stayed silent. A few things leapt to mind, but they all seemed so mind blowingly obvious that he was sure she'd already thought of, and discarded them. He was here to be 'talked at,' after all.

Eventually, the girl continued. "Even if it's all for Shiho's sake, I can't…" She started crying, falling forward onto the table. Not trusting his mouth, the pigtailed boy reached forward with one hand, unwrapping Takamaki's fingers from the glass and holding hers, gently.

'What the actual hell am I doing?' He thought to himself, totally out of his depth. He thought of the number of ways this could go wrong in Nerima, of the fact that he barely knew this girl past sitting behind her in class, of how his response to all of this would have been to talk to his friend about it and tell Kamoshida where he could stick it, but even then, he didn't let go.

"I hate this…" She eventually croaked. "I just kept desperately hoping that he'd change his mind, that he'd leave me alone… But that's not going to happen, is it?"

"It might," Ranma found himself saying, the conversation only an hour earlier resurfacing in his mind.

"I wasn't expecting-," She started, but he cut her off before she could finish.

"His mind might change, I mean," he clarified. "What if that could happen, but… there was a chance it would kill him?"

"Kill him?" She asked, eyes wide. "What?"

"Sorry," Ranma shook his head. "Was a stupid question."

"Are you… you and Ryuji planning something?" Her eyes narrowed, the tears quickly drying up.

"No!" He exclaimed, hurriedly. "It was just… a thought."

"Pretty screwed up thought," She muttered, and then her eyes fell to the tabletop. "But… I'd be lying if I said I didn't consider it. I… don't think I could, though, not really. No matter how many times I just wished he'd go away."

"Yeah… it's not really an option." Ranma noted. He stood up from his seat, grabbing his bag from where it hung from his chair. "I should get going."

"Yeah," She nodded. "Thanks… for listening, and everything. I guess you've got some stuff going on too, though." She looked a little rattled at the direction the conversation had turned near the end, but still gave him a smile. He just hitched his bag up onto a shoulder and walked out of the restaurant.

As he hit the street, his phone chimed. "Perfect…" he muttered, pulling it out of his pocket. Once more, the little card and chains was displayed, this time announcing that the 'Lovers' arcana had reached level 1. In addition, there was an exclamation icon at the side of the screen. Pushing it, a text box popped up informing him that 'Chariot' had reached level two a bit over twenty four hours ago.

Growling under his breath, he dismissed the notifications and cursed The Nose.

HR.

"You're late, where were you?" Ranma was honestly expecting that greeting, but wasn't all that interested, at the moment.

"Had 'ta do some things," he replied, shortly.

Sojiro rubbed his forehead. "Magic bullshit?"

"Nah, not this time," Ranma shook his head.

The older man opened his mouth, then seemed to reconsider his words. "I can't be waiting for you this late. Whatever you're doing, either do it earlier or warn me."

"Yeah, got it…" Ranma muttered, walking past him and waving a hand dismissively.

"Hey! I'm letting you stay here, remember?" The older man demanded. "I expect some damned consideration!"

Ranma spun on one heel, and the older man found himself stepping back from the glare he was getting for a moment. "Yeah… maybe not for much longer. You'll be happy 'bout that, right?" He then spun back the other way and walked quietly up the stairs.

The balding man rubbed the back of his head, before sighing deeply. "Kid's got to work on that temper." He considered following up to the second floor and demanding an explanation, but reconsidered. He was fully aware that he also had a temper. ...Maybe, though, it might be time to stop trying to ignore all of this.

HR.

04/14.

'Had a volleyball rally. My team lost. Face still kinda hurts. Pet a cat. Gym teacher is still an asshole.'

At least this time he'd managed to jot something noncommittal and vague in the journal, before being distracted by several exceedingly long texts from Ryuji, complaining about japanese composition, and the teachers who would make him study it.

[I KEEP SAYING IVE GOT NO IDEA]

[You're really not much of a help, are you?]

[I'm making you help with this tomorrow.]

[THINK THATD BE LESS HELPFUL BUT OKAY]

[See ya then, man.]

[YEAH SEE YA]

The pigtailed martial artist tossed the phone on the table in the corner of the room, along with his half-finished homework. Admittedly, he wouldn't mind going over it with someone else. Back in Nerima, he could usually talk Akane into it, if she was in a good mood, but not so much here.

Stripping off his clothes, he sprawled out on his narrow bed and closed his eyes. Once more, he had no dreams.

HR.

"Mornin'" Ranma muttered, slumping down at the counter and tucking into the bowl of curry that was set before him. The thought had crossed his mind to ask if Sojiro made anything else, but then, it was free food, and he knew he kind of pissed the guy off. On the plus side, if he had to be stuck eating curry every morning, he could imagine much worse. He shook his head, trying to banish the mental image of Akane's attempt at it.

"Mornin'," the older man grunted back, before Ranma heard the rustling of a dropping newspaper. "Kid?"

The pigtailed boy looked up, hearing the serious tone. "Hmm?"

"Look," Sojiro said, leaning forward and crossing his arms on the counter. "I've gotta open up now, so we don't have time, but tonight, we're gonna talk, get some stuff straight, alright?"

'Great, more threats about keeping in line,' Ranma thought, but managed to stop himself from saying it.

"And no, it's not just gonna be me telling you to keep your nose clean," The older man continued. Ranma blinked, surprised. "Your face is real easy to read, don't play poker."

Ranma's eye twitched, but he eventually nodded. "I'll try ta make it back early."

Sojiro grabbed the cleaned plate. "Thanks. Now flip the sign on your way out."

HR.

All morning, a strange sensation seemed to be twisting Ranma's gut. It probably had something to do with how Kamoshida or that other world kept coming up. Those two girls he always seemed to end up walking behind were talking about some girl who 'stayed late' with him after class, and he caught himself wondering if it was the one he'd talked to the previous night before he remembered that her name was Takamaki, and not Suzui. Then, he'd spotted Morgana crouching in the alley they'd talked in before, staring at him as he walked by.

It was hard to concentrate on the social studies lecture, or rather, even harder than usual, and he found his eyes moving towards the hallways, or the windows outside. That was why he spotted it when several students in the hall turned, surprised looks on their faces as they looked out into the courtyard. "What is that?" One asked, several moving to get a better view.

A couple of students in the class got out of their desks, moving to the window that separated them from the hallway.

"Enough!" The teacher barked, "This is class time, get back in your seats!"

"She's going to jump!" One of the standing students yelled.

"Shizui…" Mishima said, just loudly enough to hear.

Immediately afterward, Takamaki added "Shiho?"

Ranma didn't wait, leaping out of his chair just as the blonde girl stood to her feet. He heard the teacher yelling a warning, but ignored it as he bolted across the room, shoving open the classroom door. This started a tidal wave, most of the class following. Someone was pretty fast, pulling ahead of the rest.

When the group slid to a stop at the window, Ranma's heart stopped. Standing at the edge of the roof, looking down at the courtyard below was the girl he'd talked to on the way out of school yesterday. She was gently rocking back and forward, obviously trying to get up the nerve to push herself off.

Reaching out, He grabbed the window and yanked with all of his strength, but it didn't budge, which wasn't a surprise, really. It was probably screened, regardless. "Shit…"

He backed up, and Takamaki immediately rushed in to take his place. "Get Down!" He yelled, as authoritatively as he could, a plan rapidly taking shape in his mind. She didn't actually fall to the ground, but she did turn to see who was yelling at her, which got her far enough out of the way. Leaping up, he planted his feet against the hallways' opposite wall, pushing off as hard as he could. Turning in mid-air, he tucked his arms, legs and head as tightly to his torso as possible, slamming into the window back first.

The glass shattered with a loud crash, and the thin metallic mesh screen fell with him as he unfolded, legs planting against the concrete wall on either side of the window. The girl had apparently just gotten the courage to tip herself over, falling head first towards the ground in front of him. Bending his knees and leaning forward, he kicked again, shooting across the courtyard.

All of this had happened in a couple of seconds, and his brain was still only half way through working out a plan. Normally, at this point, he'd just catch her and land, but unfortunately that wasn't an option given how little strength he had. Thanking his father for the aerial focus of the Saotome school, he spread out his arms, maneuvering in mid-air so that he was below the girl, facing her, and then threw all four limbs backwards.

His legs, longer than his arms, impacted first, just as the girl slammed into his chest. He'd done his best to arrange his body so that the shock to her would be minimized as much as possible, but he winced as one hand came down on a ridge in the pavement, bending in at a bad angle. He grunted as he felt several tendons and muscles strain badly, but nothing broke, before her weight sandwiched him between her body and the ground, all the air being driven from his lungs.

When everything decelerated to a somewhat more normal speed, he found himself lying still on the ground, a girl laying across his chest. "Ge… m…" he tried to speak, but couldn't take a breath, her weight was keeping his chest from rising.

He tried to slide a bit sideways, using what strength he had to shift just a little bit as spots exploded at the corners of his eyes. 'If I die like this, I'll never live it down…' a small, delirious portion of his brain chipped in, before the weight abruptly lifted from his body.

The girl was holding herself up on all fours, frantic, scared eyes looking into his. "Wh… why? You…" She wasn't looking too good, her gaze unfocused and shaky. A thought confirmed a second later when she slumped sideways, sprawled out on the ground next to him.

As a crowd of people began milling about them, from those who had already been in the courtyard and a few who ran out from the school, the pigtailed boy's eyes closed, and he passed out.

HR.

"That fucking idiot!" It wasn't exactly the nicest thing to say, or what he really thought, to be honest, but it was the first thing that sprang to Ryuji Sakamoto's mind as he saw his new friend smash back first through a second story window.

The whole situation felt almost unreal. He'd just been being bored to tears in math class, when someone had yelled that some girl was jumping off the roof and everything went insane. Students rushed to the hallway windows en-masse, and two people had jumped to their probable deaths.

Well, he'd seen Ranma do some insane stuff, he might be okay, maybe, the boy assured himself as he skidded around the stairwell's landing, then leapt the next flight in one jump, one leg almost giving out on impact with the ground.

By the time he'd managed to charge out into the courtyard, however, it was all over. Ranma was laying spread-eagle on the ground, a girl lying sprawled next to him. "Suzui…" he breathed, before more details of the situation began to register. There wasn't much blood, though the small amount that was visible was pooling under Ranma's body, and both of their chests were rising and falling in stable, if rapid, breathing. "Oh thank god…"

"Everyone, step back, damn it!" a gruff voice barked, and the incognito punk blinked, looking around to see that a crowd had gathered around him. No one seemed inclined to listen to the teacher's demands, and there were more students pushing in. Ryuji caught a flash of blonde hair near the back of the crowd, and then heard a panicked yell of "Shiho!"

Grunting, he started pushing through himself, grabbing Ann's arm and pulling her forward. "Hey, let go of… Ryuji?" She asked, her expression still panicked.

"She didn't look too bad when I got here," he said, his voice cracking slightly even though he was trying to keep it level. "Ranma looks way worse. The idiot."

"Why… why did this happen?" Ann asked, continuing to try and make her way through the crowd. Before they could comment anymore, the sound of a siren pierced the air, an ambulance backing slowly through the school's wide open gates.

Several EMTs leapt from the vehicle, swarming over the two motionless students on the ground before strapping them into spinal boards and gently lifting each in turn onto the waiting stretchers.

"We need someone to go with them," the lead EMT said, looking around the crowd. "Are any of their teachers here?"

The crowd was filled with nervous muttering for a moment, mostly excuses about not being their teacher, and Ann was just about to step forward in order to try and go herself, when a reluctant voice spoke up. "I'm Saotome-kun's homeroom teacher." Ms. Kawakami stepped out of the crowd, looking as if she'd rather be anywhere but here.

Even though she hadn't been able to volunteer, Ann tried to move forward to talk to the girl on the stretcher, but one of the EMTs blocked her way and gently pushed her back. "I'm sorry, miss, but we need to get them to the hospital as quickly as possible."

"Y-yeah… please take care of her," the blonde girl said, before turning away, crying.

"Look, uh… Takamaki…" Ryuji offered, uncertain. To his surprise, Ann's arm lashed out, grabbing him by the hand and almost dragging him out of the courtyard. "Hey! Where are we going?" He demanded, as he heard the ambulance pulling out behind them.

She didn't answer, just continuing to pull him until the two of them reached a dead end, empty corridor.

"Hey, what the eff?!" He finally burst out, tugging his hand free of her grip.

She just turned to him, eyes red rimmed, but no longer streaming with tears. "The two of you, you were planning something about Kamoshida, right?"

"I keep tellin' you to just back off, we ain't doin any-" Ryuji exclaimed before being cut off.

"I want in."

END.

Quick Note: We started planning this long before we knew that P5R was a thing, and as such none of its plotpoints will be present here, unless we do it accidentally.


	4. Chapter 4: Is Death Really That Bad?

Fools Rush In…  
By JSB and Weebee.

Chapter 4: Is Death Really That Bad?

"Not my smartest idea…" Ranma mumbled to himself, staring up at the white painted roof of the ambulance as its engine rumbled in the background.

"Jumping out of a second story window? No, not really." The normally tired voice sounded much more tense than usual. Ranma turned his head slightly to see his homeroom teacher sitting in one of the small seats built into the compartment, a paramedic in the other. The pigtailed martial artist winced as the slight shifting caused several small jolts of pain from his back.

"Think it was more catchin' someone with my chest," he disagreed.

The teacher was about to respond, when the paramedic spoke over her. "You're awake?" He scrambled over to examine Ranma. "Can you tell me your name?"

"Uh… Ranma Saotome," the pigtailed martial artist replied, irritated. He knew how this usually went down, having gone through it once or twice before when injured on the road. Still, he tried to answer the questions as patiently as possible, since running off wouldn't be the smartest idea...not to mention probably impossible, as he was strapped down.

Between questions, he got a few glances at the girl laying on the stretcher next to him, but she was still passed out. Even so, the expression on her face when she'd been looking down at him still lingered, a sort of terrified confusion. The questions finally came to an end a few minutes later, but that was only because they'd arrived at the hospital. The two patients were hurriedly wheeled away, while a slightly frazzled teacher was led in a different direction.

HR.

The next hour contained even more annoying questions, along with an assessment of the damage by a brisk doctor who asked several times if he was really telling the truth about having jumped out a window. The hand that had landed wrong had a sprained wrist, which wasn't much of a surprise given that it'd been bent almost double. He had several superficial cuts across his back from the glass of the window, and a couple of deep ones from where he'd landed on it. The man had given him a brace for the hand, a couple of pills and a prescription before finally letting him go.

When he stepped out of the examination room with the doctor following two steps behind, Ms. Kawakami was waiting outside, her arms crossed over her chest.

"Your guardian has a real attitude, you know that?" The frizzy haired teacher sighed.

"I've gotten the idea, yeah," Ranma nodded as he straightened his now damaged shirt, having just changed back into his clothes from a hospital gown. Holding up the jacket, he frowned at the blood stains and tears on the back before folding it and tucking it under one arm. "Why? What happened?"

She rubbed the center of her forehead with two fingers. "I called him and explained that you were in the hospital. He asked if you were dying, and when I explained that you were fine, he said, and I quote, 'Then the brat can wait until I close shop.'"

"Sounds about right," Ranma winced. He remembered the request for a talk and an early return this morning, getting the feeling that the conversation would be much less cordial now.

"That means," the teacher said, obviously annoyed, "That you can't leave the hospital until he decides to come and sign your discharge papers. Which also means that I can't leave until he gets here, either."

"I'm sorry?" Ranma offered.

"You should be." Was the immediate response.

The doctor behind the pigtailed martial artist cleared his throat a bit nervously. "I don't know how you said he was alright before the examination was completed," he sounded a bit offended. "Fortunately, he is, so long as he sticks to the treatment I've given."

"Yeah, got it," Ranma waved his good hand. "No one finger handstands." The doctor just glared at him for a second before mentioning he had other patients and turning to walk off. Ranma watched him leave, before shrugging. "What's his problem?" Getting no answer, he turned back to the teacher. "So, Ms. Kawakami, you hear anything about that girl?"

"That… ah…" The older woman looked a bit uncomfortable. "I went to see her first, actually, but she was still asleep. According to a nurse I talked to, she's only got a few cuts and bruises."

"Well at least somethin' went right," Ranma said.

The two fell into an uncomfortable silence for a moment, before the brown haired woman took a quick look around and a deep breath. "Saotome… what are you?"

"Huh?" He blinked.

She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the wall. "I was on my way out into the courtyard when I spotted what happened. You flung yourself out of a closed window, got hit in the chest by another person, and then both of you hit the ground…" Her voice had been getting a bit shaky as she went through all of this. "On top of that, you shift sex with water, and after all that happened today you're making bad jokes!"

The pigtailed martial artist just stared at her blankly for a moment. "...yeah?"

"Even Mr. Kamoshida would have broken something pulling that!" She exploded.

"Hey, I was gunna explain, but you were all about lying if I had to," Ranma justified. "I've been trainin' in the martial arts since I could walk. ...Actually, since before, if a couple of the stories the old man tells are true."

"I… Martial arts practice shouldn't let you do that!" Kawakami objected.

"Not the way most people do it, nah," Ranma agreed. "Though given how some of the people with the cops reacted, you probably really don't wanna know."

"I… think you might be right," Kawakami said with a sigh. "At least whatever you did, it helped Suzui-san."

"Suzui… So that's what…" Ranma muttered.

"That's… what?" The teacher asked.

Ranma looked at her for a long moment and shook his head. "Nothin'. Can I go see her?"

Kawakami nodded. "We're going to be here until both your guardians show up, so I don't see why not."

HR.

She wants in? In on what? Ryuji Sakamoto was confused, scared and angry, and he couldn't figure out which he felt more as Ann confronted him at the end of a deserted hallway. "Look, there ain't anything to be in on," he said eventually, after a few moments of uncomfortable silence.

"Don't give me that!" The girl yelled, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. "I talked to your friend Saotome last night. He said you guys might have something you could do. ...About fixing Kamoshida...with consequences."

"Oh," Ryuji said, flatly. "In on that. Why the hell would you want in on that? You're dating the bastard!"

"Of course… why does everyone…" A fist clenched, and tears began to run down the girl's face. "Let me make this clear, right now. I'm not dating him. I never wanted to date him. My best friend just jumped off of the fucking roof, and I think it's his fault! No, I… I know it's his fault."

"I… shit," Ryuji said, drawing a total blank on anything more eloquent. The big problem here was that Ann was looking at him as though he had any idea what he was doing. Yes, he knew what Ranma had been talking about, and the App was still on his phone, but… "I don't suppose you'd be willing to leave this to me?"

The response he got was being grabbed by the collar and pulled intimidatingly close to her teary, but defiant face. "That's a hard no." She said. "I need to stop him."

He sighed, but at least some of it was relief. He wasn't sure what was going on with Ranma, and didn't relish the idea of entering that metaverse place by himself. Dragging Ann in, though, was probably an even worse idea. "Then you're really not gunna like this," he said, eventually. "We can't do anything right now."

As she was opening her mouth, obviously angry, he continued. "Look, I'm gunna need Ranma to do anything, and there's a lot on the line for both of us. At least I wanna find out how injured he is before making any more decisions on this."

"I… yeah," Ann eventually nodded, letting go of his shirt and taking a step back. "No matter how much I want to claw the bastard's eyes out, I… I see your point." She glared into his eyes. "You are going to contact me though, right?"

"Yeah, don't worry. I hear ya," Ryuji nodded. "Now we should probably get outta here."

HR.

'It's a pretty nice hospital room,' Ranma's mind provided, unnecessarily, as the door slid closed behind him. Ms. Kawakami had elected to wait outside, but he'd wanted to at least see the girl. She was laying in a bed on the other side of the room, under a half-curtained window. "Uh… hey," he said, awkwardly, unsure why he'd wanted to see her, especially given the fact that she was… not unconscious, her head having snapped around with his words, wide eyes locked on his.

She just stared at him for several seconds, until he awkwardly sidled towards a chair near her bed. "So, uh… should I call a nurse, or…"

"Why?"

"Because they're supposed ta know when people wake up, and…" he babbled, completely out of his depth.

"Why did you save me?" He blinked. That made a lot more sense, when he thought about it. Still, the answer seemed fairly obvious.

"Because if I didn't you were probably going to die?" When she didn't respond to that, just continuing to stare, he continued "I mean, I guess that's what you were trying to do, jumping off the building, and everything…" Once more, awkward silence. "I guess I could ask you. Why, I mean, but that's a stupid question. Kamoshida, again, right?"

She just nodded slowly.

"Then I guess… I just acted on instinct, but in retrospect I'm glad I did," Ranma said, slowly. "You only got one life, and you shouldn't lose it because of someone as pathetic as that guy."

"Pathetic…" the girl said, quietly.

"Hey, I… I don't mean you're pathetic, or anything!" He said, quickly, raising both hands. "Sometimes you get into really shitty situations. I mean, I don't know what happened with you, exactly, but I… heard some things, from Takamaki especially… and now she's crying… I'm gunna shut up." He slumped down on the chair next to the bed and waited.

A few seconds later, the door to the room opened and Ms. Kawakami entered. She looked between the two students for a moment, and then quickly walked over and grabbed Ranma by the arm, yanking him out of the chair and towards the door. "What did you do?" She hissed under her breath as the two were about to cross the doorstep.

"Wait!" Both teacher and student turned at the loud exclamation, catching sight of the girl on the bed rapidly scrubbing her eyes clear of tears. "I…" She said, slowly. "Thank you. For trying to help, I mean."

"Yeah, not a problem," Ranma said, surprised, before glancing back at his teacher. "Wanna loosen your grip there? You're cuttin' circulation."

Ms. Kawakami dropped his arm immediately. "Suzui-san, your parents are here."

"Oh." A look of sheer panic crossed the girl's face for just a moment before she forced it down. "Th-thank you."

After delivering her message, the teacher tugged Ranma out of the room, where he caught sight of two older people waiting next to the door, a man and a woman, both with black hair and wearing business attire. He wondered if he was supposed to say something, but just decided on a slight nod as they passed him.

"Well, that was-" he started after the door closed, uncertain of how he was going to finish the sentence.

"You did a lot better than I thought you would." Kawakami noted.

Ranma was unsure if she was being sarcastic, but decided that he wasn't going to ask. The two walked down the hall in silence, until they were interrupted by a door at the end of the hall swinging open abruptly, a very annoyed looking man wearing a white trilby striding through it. The man caught sight of them and quickened his pace towards them, grumbling to himself along the way.

"Damn it, kid-" Sojiro Sakura started as he reached them, before being interrupted by a very unlikely source.

"You would be Sojiro Sakura?" Ms. Kawakami asked in a clipped tone, glaring at the older man.

"I- um… yes," He returned, coming to an abrupt halt as if he'd slammed into a brick wall.

"The one who decided that he would only come and pick up his charge after closing his shop, thus making it so that I had to stay here with Saotome-kun for an extra hour, rather than doing my job?" The woman asked, false sweetness dripping off of every word.

"Um… yes?" Sojiro asked, looking distinctly nervous, and sending a bewildered look to the woman's side, which Ranma just shrugged at.

"I see," The teacher nodded. "Maybe I should visit this coffee shop of yours some time?" Turning, she left without another word.

"...Why do I feel like I just got detention?" Sojiro asked.

"I… don't think I've ever seen her that mad," Ranma responded. Sojiro coughed slightly into his hand, gaining an unnoticed glare from one of the passing nurses.

HR.

"Man, Ryuji is… panicked," Sojiro looked over at the kid, who was squinting down at his cellphone and poking at it.

"Five seconds with it and you're already doin' that? You catch on quick, huh?" He muttered, irritably.

"I wouldn't 'a bothered, but he sent another message right after I got it back," Ranma explained, sticking the device in his pocket.

"Right…" the older man said, stepping up to his car and unlocking the doors. He was still a little off balance from that woman who had confronted him, though in a way, he was also thankful to her. His irritation at getting a call about the damned kid being in the hospital had been neatly derailed, and he'd started thinking again. He still fully planned to read the kid the riot act, and maybe kick him out, if he didn't have a damned good explanation for why he'd ended up there, but he was going to get the explanation first.

He waited until the two of them were seated in the car before he spoke. "What happened?" He asked, starting the engine and backing up.

"There was a girl on the roof," Ranma started slowly. "She was gunna jump off, so…" He shrugged.

"So what?" Sojiro barked. "I'm going to need more than that!"

"So I jumped out the window to catch her," Ranma continued.

"Y-you what?!" Sojiro asked, the car jerking slightly to one side as it turned out of the parking lot.

"Are you an idiot?!" The older man roared.

"Well, it's the first message on my phone," Ranma answered, but then frowned. "Look, I know what you're gunna say, and just… don't."

"Excuse me?" The older man asked in a dangerous tone.

"If you tell me I should've let her hit the pavement when I could have stopped it, then stop the damned car right now, I'm gettin' out."

"Let her hit- wait, you actually caught her? How?"

"I told ya I was a martial artist," Ranma answered. "Not as much of one right now."

"I… that…" Sojiro sighed, rubbing his forehead with one hand. "You're wrong, by the way. I was going to tell you that you could've been killed, and couldn't have done anything anyway. Evidently, I'm wrong about that… And somehow you only sprained a wrist?"

"Wouldn't even have done that if I'd had my full strength," Ranma grimaced down at his braced hand.

"I… I'm just gunna go with… y'know what? No. You're gunna explain that, all of it. From the beginning."

"This is gunna take a while, and some people react kinda badly to it. You sure?" Ranma asked.

"I'm sure," Sojiro answered firmly.

"Fine, I guess… So I said I was a martial artist, but it's a bit more complicated than that. The ol' man started training me when I was about five. We left home on this ten year training trip, and…"

HR.

"I asked for it…" Sojiro mumbled to himself, head pressed firmly against the coffee shop's counter, and right hand gripping a tumbler of brown liquid as tightly as he could without breaking it. "At least three engagements… that you know of, that cat… THING, that Happosai… person…" He raised his head and gulped some of the liquid, before leaning back and looking his charge over carefully.

"Your life is shit, kid." The older gentleman stated bluntly.

"Figured that out already," Ranma agreed. "The time in jail and all the people they had me talk to made me think about it a bit more, and it does seem kinda nuts, but it's what I got, right?"

"And with that whole weakness watchmicallit and that polititian? Now that's a joke, eh?." Sojiro laughed a bit.

"Think maybe you've had enough," Ranma offered.

"Probably," Sojiro grunted. "The story's over, right?"

"Yeah?" Ranma more asked than said.

"I told ya not to play poiker, kid," Sojiro slurred, shook his head and turned around, putting what was left in his glass away in the store's fridge. "Let's leave it at that for now, though. I've got a few things to say myself, and it's getting late." He took several moments to marshal his thoughts before speaking again.

"What you did, I… I get it. It was the right thing to do even if it wasn't keeping out of the way, and if someone told me not to do somethin' like that I'd probably punch their lights out. Problem here is, I've got my own issues. If you keep doing stuff like this, people could come knockin', and I can't have that, so I'll be honest with you."

He paused to breath, and Ranma was unsure if he was waiting for a response for a moment before the older man continued. "If anything related to you comes after me or my… After me, well, you know. But you seem to be a magnet for this stuff. Unfortunately I have to… I want to try and help you keep a lid on it. I want you working here, for me, three nights a week. At least then I can keep an eye on you some of the time, and you get money out of it so it won't be so bad on ya."

Ranma's knee-jerk reaction was to object, but he bit it back. He hadn't missed what the man had almost said, and filed it away for later. "Is this a real suggestion, or a drunk one?" He asked, suspiciously.

"A little of both?" The older man admitted.

"Well," Ranma started. "If ya remember it in the morning, then sure, I guess. I've been runnin' low on cash anyways."

"Great," Sojiro said, before suddenly grinning like an idiot. "Uniform's in the closet next to the supply room." Standing, he moved a bit unsteadily towards the door. "Make sure to lock up. In fact, if you're my employee now, that's your job from now on, got it?"

"...yeah," Ranma said, slowly. "You should probably get to bed."

HR.

Ryuji practically teleported across his room when he heard his phone ring. About an hour before, he'd gotten a turse, all-caps message from Ranma that he'd call back as soon as he could. Or to be more accurate, 'CUD'. Checking the phone's display, he verified the number and answered. "Hey man, you alright?"

"Just finished havin' a really weird conversation with my guardian, but other than that, yeah, I'm fine," Ranma answered, sounding so calm that you'd hardly believe he'd leapt out of a window that afternoon.

"You hit the ground from the second floor,and someone landed on you!" The formerly blond boy exclaimed, "Unless your guardian told you he was an alien or somethin', I think you've got bigger issues."

"Not really," Ranma answered dismissively. "Worst I've got is a sprained wrist and a couple cuts. My guardian just recruited me for a job and started grinnin' like an idiot when he mentioned the uniform."

"That's… weird," Ryuji admitted. "I'm glad you're okay, though. Guess I shouldn't be that surprised, since I saw all the stuff you did in the castle. Did you hear anything about Shiho?"

"She's okay,, I think?" Ranma sounded oddly hesitant. "I took most of the fall, but… well, she jumped off in the first place."

"Yeah," Ryuji agreed, his free fist clenching. "Takamaki came and basically confirmed it had somethin' to do with Kamoshida. She also says she 'wants in. What did you tell her?"

"Oh, right…" Ranma muttered, sounding sheepish. "We talked a bit yesterday. She was…" He paused for a moment, and then continued. "She was havin' issues with Kamoshida buggin' her,and I asked her the same thing we were talking about. Y'know, if you could stop him but it could hurt or kill him, would you?"

"Yeah, that explains it," Ryuji nodded, slumping down on his bed. "Apparently her answer to that is yes, by the way. She's pretty much demanded to talk to both of us tomorrow. What're we going to do about this? I mean, even if we do decide to go back into the castle, she doesn't have a Persona! She could get hurt."

"This sounds kinda familiar," Ranma answered. "I mean, I ain't too happy about it either, but I remember how this ended last time."

"That was different!" The formerly blond boy objected loudly.

Ranma stayed silent for an uncomfortably long time before retorting irritably, "How?!"

"Okay, fine, it wasn't!" Ryuji stated, "But you know. At least I had an idea of what I was getting into."

Ranma sighed. "Then I guess we got a lot of talkin' to do."

"I guess," Ryuji said reluctantly. "So… are we seriously goin' through with this?" He continued in a quiet tone.

"Like I said," Ranma started slowly. "Lotta talkin'. I'll see you tomorrow, alright? The old guy just yelled at me that he was leavin' so I've gotta close up the shop."

"Wait, shop? What?" Ryuji asked, though the other boy had already hung up.

HR.

Ranma sighed as he made his way back up the stairs after locking the front door. After the eventful day and the expectations for tomorrow, he just wanted to fall into bed.

"I guess I still have to write this." He groaned as he looked at his government mandated journal. He opened the leather bound book to a new blank page.

"4/15…eh, screw it." The pigtailed martial artist pulled the crumpled hospital admission and release forms out of his pants pocket. Sojiro had given them to him because, in his words, 'I'm not your lawyer, handle your own paperwork.'

Grabbing up the stapler that he'd spotted sitting at the edge of the pile of junk on the desk, he secured the papers inside of the journal, cursing as the stapler almost leapt out of his hands. "There, that'll do," he muttered as he dropped the book on the dresser, a couple of pages now poking haphazardly out of the side.

"Now if I can just get some sleep without the nose buggin' me…"

HR.

"Nice sunglasses," Ranma commented as he walked down the stairs the next morning. The cafe was as empty as it always was in the mornings, save for Sojiro leaned over the counter already sporting his green apron and holding a cup of steaming black coffee.

"You're funny," Sojiro said in a deadpan tone, taking a long sip from his cup. Beneath the classy, circular shades perched on his nose, his irritated frown made it very evident how he was feeling. "I'm pretty sure it's not time for summer uniforms already."

Ranma, for his part, was feeling fairly good. He'd gotten a blessedly nose-free night's sleep, and his hand didn't hurt that badly. "The other one's stained and ripped, couldn't wear it even if I wanted." He stated, sliding up to the counter, where the now-expected plate of curry was waiting. He began eating at a measured pace, while his guardian continued to nurse his coffee.

The silence lasted several minutes, before the older man put down his cup and dug around in a pocket on his apron, slapping down several bills and a small form.

Ranma tilted his head, his mouth still full. "A forward on your first pay," Sojiro grunted. "You start Monday. The form there's the prescription the hospital gave you, don't forget to pick it up in the clinic at the corner."

"Huh, didn't expect that," Ranma said, looking at the money oddly.

Sojiro shrugged. "Consider it a sign of good faith. Besides, you're going to need it to replace your uniform."

"Thanks, appreciate it," Ranma said, wincing a little as he scooped the pile up and stuffed it in his pocket. There went half of his windfall already. "Should probably get to the clinic if I wanna make it before school starts." He stood, heading for the door and flipping the sign before Sojiro could say anything.

"...huh… Thought I'd get more negotiation over the hours," the bearded man muttered, grabbing the dishes and turning to the sink.

HR.

"Huh, way smaller than Doc Tofu's…" Ranma mumbled to himself as he entered the cluttered waiting room of the small clinic a block away from the cafe. At the enclosed desk in front of him, a dark haired woman raised her head from where it was resting on her hand, looking him up and down.

"Haven't heard that name in a while," she said, before smiling at him. "Welcome to my clinic, I'm Dr. Takemi, how may I help you?"

"I got this," Ranma said, digging the prescription out of his pocket and walking up to the desk with it.

She read it over for a moment, and then turned to type some things into her computer. "Mind if I take a quick look at the injury?"

Ranma frowned. "I'm kinda on the way to school, ain't the paperwork enough?"

"It is," She nodded. "Just a bit of professional curiosity. If it takes too long I'll write you a note."

"Sure, I guess," Ranma said, holding out his still braced wrist. As she looked it over, poking and prodding at it a bit, he asked, "So you know Doc Tofu?"

"We went to college together," She returned, her voice sounding a bit distracted. "How long ago did you get this sprain?"

"Yesterday, around noon," Ranma answered.

"Hmm…" The woman let go of his hand, looking him up and down once again. "And how did you get it?"

"Fell out a window and landed wrong… why?" Ranma asked, starting to get a bit nervous of how the woman was looking at him.

"I see," The doctor said slowly, as she turned to grab a bottle from the shelves behind her and place it on the counter. "That's all I needed, but could you stop by again in a week or so? I'd like to make sure it's healing well."

"It'll probably be done by then, but sure," Ranma agreed, picking the bottle up and turning to leave.

HR.

Ranma only made it about a foot past his desk when classes ended at noon before the blond girl who sat next to him was walking behind him. "Sakamoto said to meet up on the roof," She said, with no preamble.

He sighed. He'd known that today wasn't going to be a normal one, but hadn't quite understood how much of an impact his stunt the day before would have on the students. He'd heard several people talking about it, and had been stared at whenever most of the class thought they could get away with it. One of the teachers had even yelled at him for distracting everyone. Takamaki had actually been the most subtle, only saying "We'll talk at lunch" when he had first sat down.

"Head up there without me," he answered the girl's previous comment. When she gave him a strange look, he explained, "With the number of people watching me, I've gotta do something else."

"Alright," Ann said, reluctantly, splitting off from him and heading to the stairs as he made for the end of the hall, headed for the second floor. When he walked into the teacher's lounge, Ms. Kawakami looked at him irritably. "Saotome-kun?"

"Sorry, just a sec," Ranma returned, looking around. Once again, she was the only one in the room, and it looked like she was in the middle of packing a huge pile of papers into her bag.

"What are you-" She started, before he headed for the sink in the corner of the room and turned on the cold water, shifting to female form.

At her puzzled look, the redhead shrugged. "Kinda got tired of bein' stared at."

"Fair enough," the older woman nodded, "But I don't think you're going to get fewer stares as a girl in a badly fitting boys uniform."

"Yeah, but I'll have less people trying to follow me to ask about yesterday." Ranma noted, adjusting her uniform as best she could for her new form before walking out of the office waving over her shoulder. "See ya Monday, teach."

She was half way down the hall when she cursed. "Couldn'ta gotten any hot water, huh?" She shrugged and turned to walk up the steps. It wasn't worth going back for now. By the time she reached the roof, Ann and Ryuji were sitting at two of the desks scattered around one corner eating their lunches.

"Ah, so that's what you meant," Ryuji said as he caught sight of the redhead. "Ann said you had to do something."

"Hmm?" The blonde asked, glancing at the shorter girl, mid-bite of her sandwich. She attempted to say something more loud and outraged but ended up coughing instead.

"Right, you…" Ryuji said, rubbing his forehead. "That's Ranma, believe it or not. It freaked me out a bit when I first saw it, too, but he just… does that."

"Does what? Randomly becomes someone else?" Ann scowled. "Ryuji, this is serious!"

Ranma sighed irritably, reconsidering how wise it was to decide not to get hot water. "When I showed up half a day late for class and introduced myself, you whispered 'Lies' to me. Still haven't figured out what that was about."

"That's…" The other girl shook her head. "Look, I still don't buy it, but if he told you that much you're in on this anyway, so I'm going to find out what you… three… are planning."

"No, he's-" Ryuji started.

"Close enough," Ranma interrupted. "I can show her the curse later or somethin'. Besides, if she doesn't believe the curse, she's probably not gunna buy any of the rest of it, unless…"

"Unless what?"Ann asked.

Ranma turned for the stairs. "C'mon, I wanna show you something."

"Wait. What happened to the long talk we were supposed to have?" Ryuji exclaimed, jumping to his feet.

"It's not gunna make any difference if she doesn't buy anything we say," Ranma explained.

HR.

"Okay, this is starting to creep me out," Ann said nervously as she followed Ranma and Ryuji into an alley. "Just so you know, my hand's on my phone."

"So who's gunna do it?" Ryuji asked, stepping to the side.

"And that's not reassuring!" Ann interjected, irritably.

"I've got it," Ranma ignored her, pulling her cellphone out of her pocket and tapping at the screen. Ann was about to ask what she was doing when the world seemed to shift around them, the walls of the alley falling away to reveal a darker, open courtyard.

"What… what happened?!" She demanded, turning around and stopping in surprise as she noticed the huge, looming building that had replaced the school.

"Welcome to Kamoshida's castle," Ryuji growled. "It's basically a meta-physical representation of how up his own ass he is."

"This is what we can do," Ranma explained. "We've heard that stealing whatever's at the center of this place could cause him some serious damage. It'll basically make him realize how bad all the stuff he's pulled is."

"Dude, a couple days ago you said we couldn't take the risk here," Ryuji said, walking a few steps forward. "I mean, I'm fine with putting that asshole in his place, but-"

"Someone tried to kill themselves because of him," Ranma cut the boy off. "The guy's officially crossed the line."

"So it was definitely… what did he do?"

"I've got a good idea," Ann said, quietly, looking down at the cracked ground in front of her. "A couple of days ago, he called me and told me that if I didn't." She gulped, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. "If I didn't go to his place he would kick Shiho off of the volleyball team."

"Wait, so you think he…" Ryuji stopped, not wanting to finish the thought. His hands tightened into fists. He almost leapt a few steps forward before pulling himself to a stop. "I… We…."

"Fuuuuck!" The formerly blond boy bellowed at the top of his lungs, head thrown back and fists shaking.

"Yeah, basically." Came a snarky voice from a corner of the courtyard. Faster than Ranma had thought him capable of, Ryuji leaned down, grabbed a rock off of the ground and flung it at the source of the voice, causing a small black cat plush to give an undignified yelp as it flopped out onto the ground.

"Wh- what is that?" Ann asked nervously.

"That's Morgana. Thanks for drawing him out, Ryuji," Ranma said, stepping forward and pulling the plush to its feet.

"So, look who the cat dragged in," Morgana started, brushing himself off. "Come back for my help and then try to kill me? Classy."

"I thought you weren't a cat," Ryuji growled, still glaring at the plush.

Morgana huffed. "It's a figure of speech!"

"Look, can we stop arguin' here?" Ranma asked, irritably. "Yeah, we're back. And yeah, we're gunna steal Kamoshida's treasure, or whatever."

"Indeed," the cat plush nodded, radiating such an aura of smugness that Ryuji's hand twitched again. "I suppose I'll still help you even though you rejected my…" He trailed off as he looked over them, eyes catching on Ann, who was standing nervously behind the other two. "O-oh my, who's this goddess I see before me?"

As the small black creature advanced towards her, Ann backed away. "Why's this little monster looking at me? Hey, get away!"

"I'm hurt!" Morgana started, "I'm not-" He was interrupted by Ryuji leaning down and smacking him on the back of the head, hard enough to send him stumbling.

"That's Ann, and we don't got time for that," he growled.

"Heck of a way to treat a guy who's still willing to help you after all this," Morgana snapped, glaring up at the former blond.

"Y-you're getting help from this thing?" Ann asked hesitantly.

"Yeah," Ranma nodded. "He's the one who told us about this treasure stealing thing. So, that's basically it. Me 'n Ryuji plan on sneaking in there with Morgana and stealing something that…" she struggled for words for a moment. "That basically holds this place up. Take it, and it collapses. Kamoshida's forced ta deal with all the shit he's done."

"That's… insane," Ann breathed. "And you're sure this is going to work?"

"Positive," Morgana chipped in.

The blond girl thought for a moment, nodding resolutely. "Either I've gone insane, or this is real. Either way it's better than what I thought was going on, so I'm in."

"Yeah, about that," Ryuji said, still annoyed. "Ranma, I don't know why you brought her in here. She doesn't have a Persona, she can't defend herself. She ain't coming with us."

"Hey!" Ann protested, loudly.

"I was sorta hopin' it'd freak her out and she'd wanna go home," Ranma admitted, and then sighed. "But since it didn't, no, she is going with us."

"What?!" Ryuji demanded.

"I've dealt with this before," Ranma explained. "'S why I showed her this place to begin with. If you try to leave people outta this kinda crap, they'll find a way in anyway, and if you're not watchin' em they'll get in trouble you'll have to bust them out of."

Ryuji opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted almost immediately by the pigtailed girl. "Besides, you don't get ta complain." He promptly shut his mouth and sighed.

"Well, I have no objections," Morgana said, in a tone that might be trying to sound suave.

"Of course you don't," Ryuji muttered. "Fine, I get it."

"Don't suppose you brought that toy gun today?" Ranma asked.

"Actually yeah," Ryuji nodded, pulling his duffle bag off of his shoulder. "Figured it might be a good idea after we talked last night." He unzipped it, pulling out the pistol from before and tossing it to Ranma. The redhead was half-way through handing it to Ann when he reached in again, pulling a bulky, long-barrelled weapon out.

"The heck'd you get that?" Ranma asked, blinking.

"Took a while to repaint the model a bit so it looked more real," Ryuji shrugged. "So what do ya think?" He took a pose that was probably supposed to look heroic, but came off a bit goofey.

"Good," Ranma nodded. "Give it to Ann."

"Wait, what?" Both of the other two exclaimed.

"She's gunna need something to defend herself, might as well be the biggest, noisiest gun we got. If she fires it, it'll probably do a lot of damage, and we'll know she needs help," Ranma explained.

"But Ryuji just said it was a model," Ann said, puzzled.

"Yeah, those work like they're real here," Ranma answered. "Just don't fire it off too much, it'll run out of ammo."

"Yeah, I… guess that makes sense," Ryuji said, handing over the shotgun reluctantly.

"Are you guys finished talking?" Morgana asked. "Can we go now?" The plushy was tapping one foot against the ground.

"Yeah, I think so," Ranma answered. As she spoke, the black ninja outfit materialized over her body and she adjusted her mask with her braced hand.

"Wha-" Ann started, before being interrupted by the same thing happening to Ryuji. "I'm… just gunna go with it…"

As the four made their way to the vent they'd used to enter the last time, Morgana spoke up once again. "The shadows have been stirred up by our last two breakins, we've got to be careful, Joker."

"Joker?" Ranma asked, the rest of the group turning back to look at its smallest member.

"Is that some sorta… nickname or something?" Ryuji asked.

"Don't be so lame about it!" Morgana huffed. "It's a codename. What kind of stupid phantom thief would use their real name? Besides, who knows what effect yelling our real names in a palace could have. It's just a precaution."

"That… does kinda make sense," Ranma admitted. "So I'm 'Joker' then?"

"Right," Morgana nodded.

"But, what's a 'Phantom Thief'?"

"You don't know what a phantom thief is?" Ann asked, surprised.

"Well, I know what a thief is," Ranma shrugged. "I guess there could be ghost thieves, I've seen weirder."

"We… really gotta talk more about your life at some point," Ryuji muttered.

"Already had that conversation once this week," Ranma shook her head. "So, does that mean we all get these codenames, like you're 'Captain' or something?"

"Huh… Captain…" Ryuji thought for a moment. "I was kinda thinkin' 'Skull,' but I dunno."

"Skull?" Morgana snorted. "That's creative."

"Well Captain's not any better!" Ryuji shot back, sort of missing his target. "I do kinda like the sound of it, though. Like I'm the boss or somethin'."

Morgana snorted, while Ranma shook her head. "Just pick somethin', we don't have time for this."

"Alright, fine, Captain it is!" Ryuji nodded. "What about Morgana and Ann, though?"

"Let's figure that out when we're not right outside a weird dreamworld palace!" Ranma, or rather Joker snapped back, pulling herself up into the vent and looking back. "Let's go. Ann, try 'n stay out of the way if a fight starts."

"You're definitely the boss," The blonde girl chuckled.

Ryuji just rolled his eyes before leaping up after Ranma, catching himself on the ledge under the vent and flipping into it.

"H-how?" Ann stuttered, gaping up at him.

"How… what?" The boy asked, looking down in confusion.

"Okay, I know you couldn't do that before!" The girl exclaimed, hands on hips.

"I… huh. I just… did it," Ryuji replied, eyes wide. "I didn't even really think about it until you pointed it out."

"It's because you're a Persona user," Morgana said, his tone making it clear that he thought this was obvious. "Do you think a normal person could destroy a shadow with a lead pipe? A little extra strength and dexterity's not all that surprising."

"Look, Cat, I-" Ryuji started, before turning his head back down the tunnel. "Fine, right, we gotta hurry. Ann, you need some help?" He reached down with one hand.

"Thanks, Captain." the blonde said mockingly, grasping the hand and using it to help her up and into the vent.

"Eff, man, do ya have to say it like that? It just sounds insulting," Ryuji grumbled.

HR.

"Still can't believe they haven't found this way in yet," Ranma muttered as she stood on the other side of the vent, waiting for the other three to join her.

As Ryuji climbed down out of the vent, he looked a bit concerned. "Hey, quick question," He asked, reaching the ground and straightening up. "You did a bunch of flipping and running around before you got your Persona, right? You noticed any differences since?"

"Not really," Ranma replied, "Why?"

Ryuji merely responded by leaping up and backflipping in mid-air, landing neatly in a three point stance. "'Cuz I can do that now. Morgana says it's normal because of Personas, but…" He shrugged, uncertain, as Ann carefully climbed down the shelves behind him.

"Huh," Ranma tilted her head. "Maybe if we find a way in here that ain't right next to Kamoshida's palace we should spar or something."

Ryuji was about to open his mouth when he heard a loud yell from outside of the room and down the hall. Ranma gestured for the others to stay low and be quiet before they crept out to see what it was, their question answered when they reached the door to the main hall, where Shadow Kamoshida was standing, gesturing extravagantly and ordering several dozen knights who were standing in the middle to catch and kill any intruders.

Ranma turned back, about to make a comment about not going that way, when she saw Ryuji holding Ann by one arm, a murderous expression on the blonde girl's face. "Hey, I know what you're thinkin', but stop!" The skull-masked boy hissed. "You keep sayin' how you got more common sense than me, and rushin' out there is exactly what I did. Almost got everyone killed."

Ann tried to push forward against the boy's grip for a moment, but then slumped. "Fine, then, what do we do instead?"

"We explained this already," Morgana butted in. "We need to sneak deeper in, find his treasure, and steal it. You want him to confess to his crimes, right?"

"Right… sorry. I just…" Ann trailed off.

"Believe me, I understand," Ryuji laughed. "Just try and keep a lid on it for now, okay?"

"Yeah," Ann said, lowering the shotgun as the group backed slowly away from the main hall. Ranma tested a side door nearby, and it quietly swung open, revealing a guard who had just turned away from it and was walking down a narrow hall.

"Morgana?" Ranma whispered, pointing at the oblivious guard. The plush nodded, rapidly running forward and clambering up the knight's back before it could react, ripping off its helmet. When the red and black sludge that boiled out of it reformed, the group blinked.

"Is that a fairy?" Ann asked, unknowingly mirroring Ryuji's words less than a week earlier.

Ranma was about to reply when she noticed the tiny, winged woman in a leotard before them raising her hands, sparks of electricity gathering between her palms. Before she could loose the lightning, the redhead raised her pistol and fired, causing the creature to screech indignantly and fall out of the air.

She was about to pull the trigger again when the fairy raised both hands, desperately yelling "Wait!"

"They talk?" Ryuji asked, blinking.

"Of course we talk!" The fairy said, indignantly, scrambling to her feet before noticing that Ranma's gun was still pointed at her. "So, you guys are the intruders King Kamoshida talked about, huh?" Her shoulders slumped. "So you've got me, wh-what are you gunna do with me?"

"Aw man, now I feel kinda guilty," the masked punk grumbled.

"If you ain't gunna raise the alarm and agree to get outta here, we could let you go after you answer a few questions," Ranma offered.

"But… we could ask for money, or an item!" Morgana said, his eyes suddenly turning from their usual large round state into two shining, four pointed stars.

"Info's more important," Ranma shook her head. "You said King Kamoshida warned you about us, we already saw that. Can you tell us anything about the halls beyond here? If there are any traps, that kinda stuff?"

The fairy started looking distinctly nervous. "I… It's hard to remember," she said, slowly. "I know I've been a guard here ever since this palace was formed, but I tended to stay in this hallway. I think there are three more guards in the next room, it's really big, and… I think King Kamoshida might have a private chamber near here… somewhere? Th-that's enough, right?"

"That private chamber could be what we need," Morgana said, excitedly.

"Then yeah, I think that's enough," Ranma nodded. "You remember the deal, right?" When the fairy nodded rapidly, Ranma lowered her gun. "Then you're free to go."

"I… I'm free…" The fairy muttered. "I… Oh, I remember now!" She suddenly exclaimed, fluttering back up into the air. "I'm an existence that drifts in the sea of humanity's souls… My name is Pixie!"

"Uh… that's nice for you?" Ann said, slowly, looking confused. The rest of the team also wore expressions of confusion as they all glanced at each other.

"Thank you for reminding me!" Pixie continued, flying around in excited circles. "Hmm…" She raised a hand to her cheek, studying the group for a moment, before pointing at Ranma. "I'll go with you, and live within your heart!"

"Wait, wha-" Ranma started, as the little fairy began to glow brightly, reshaping into a mask made of light before flying at her. She flinched, raising her pistol and firing at the mask, but missing as it clamped onto her face, fading into the ornate mask that rested there.

"Dude, are you alright?" Ryuji asked, nervously.

"I think so," Ranma said, cautiously. "I don't feel any different, but that's kinda worrying by itself." As if in response, her phone chimed, and she blinked.

"Didn't even think this thing had pockets," She muttered, pulling the device out of one in her shirt. This time, there was an alert that stated that she had 'gained a new Persona: Pixie of the Lovers Arcana.' Tapping through to the menu under the evil eye app, she spotted Pixie under d'Éon and selected it. An anime-styled picture of the creature she'd just encountered then popped up.

"Apparently I can use her instead of d'Éon if I want," She said, slowly. "She's pretty weak, though, if these numbers mean anythin'."

"Wait, your Persona is in the metaverse app?" Ryuji asked, looking over the ninja girl's shoulder. He began to take his phone out of his own pocket before seeming to realize something. "Wait, you can have multiple Personas?"

"I guess?" Ranma looked over to Morgana.

"I got nothin'," the feline-like plush admitted with a shrug.

"Somethin' else to think about after this," Ranma answered. "Let's go."

The others fell in behind her as she exited the room into the next hallway, eventually getting to a T intersection, one portion of it blocked off by a set of iron bars projecting from the ceiling. "Guessin' that's Kamoshida's important room," Ryuji commented, tapping on one bar.

"Probably," Ranma nodded. "The place with three guards is probably the other hall here. Maybe one of 'em knows how to open this thing." With that, the group headed off down the hall, in search of someone or something to interrogate.

HR.

"Okay, third from the left…" Ranma muttered, counting suits of armor and lifting the visor of one.

"Seriously, are you okay? That horse goat thing smashed you across the room!" Ann asked, worriedly.

"Shouldn't let my guard down," Ranma returned, flicking the switch inside the armor, the metal bars sliding away with a quiet clicking noise. "That Pixie was way more cooperative than most of the other ones."

"I can't believe we might already be getting to the treasure…" Morgana breathed, his pupils turning into stars again.

"All we know is this place is important to him," Ryuji disagreed. "Cool off a little, cat."

Morgana growled, but didn't say anything as they walked down the newly opened hall. When they got to the end, Ranma waved the others back and cracked the door, only to stop in shock. "The hell am I lookin' at?"

"What?" Ryuji and Ann asked, crowding up behind her. When the blonde got a glimpse inside, she abruptly shoved forward,sending Ranma staggering to the side and shoved the door wide. Beyond it lay a vision straight out of what Ranma would consider one of Happosai's more perverse fantasies. The room, bathed in red light and draped in silks, contained over a dozen female shapes, mostly pink silhouettes wearing only bloomers, writhing around on the floor. At one end, a giant picture of the man himself looked down on the scene.

"What… what IS this?!" Ann demanded, her voice rising in a shriek.

"Important to him, apparently," Ranma growled.

"This is just… effed up." Ryuji said, stepping back a bit and looking around. "I really hope his treasure ain't here…"

"Probably just what he thinks of the girls volleyball team." Morgana noted, face contorting into a look of disgust.

"Uh…" Ranma said, having spotted something at the end of the room. "Ann? You might wanna look at this…"

"What?" The blonde girl snapped, walking over to where Ranma was standing near the picture. She stopped dead when she finally spotted the figure who had been hidden by one of the silk curtains.

"No... " Laying on the ground, sprawled out like several of the silhouettes, was Shiho, completely nude, several bruises running up the side of her torso and face, and wearing a soft, contented smile. "Shiho… I… I'm so… so sorry," the girl started to sob, sinking to the ground.

Ranma reached out a hand, but it froze in mid-air. It felt almost like the situation at the hospital, where no action seemed like a good idea. She was frantically trying to think of something to say or do when a most unwelcome voice interrupted.

"Heh, I knew my guards had to be mistaken. My Ann would never scream like that."

"You bastard…" Ryuji snarled, backing towards the other two as he raised his hand to his mask.

"Oh come now, none of this is MY fault," the robed teacher exclaimed, gesturing around as he entered the room with two armored figures behind him. "All she had to do is submit to me, and none of this would have-"

There was a loud, reverberating boom as Ann's shotgun discharged, one of Kamoshida's guards pulling him roughly out of the way and taking the hit to the chest.

"Holy…" Ryuji muttered, before brandishing his lead pipe.

Kamoshida, for his part, watched wide-eyed for a moment as one of his guards vanished in a flash of black and red, but quickly recomposed himself. "How dare you!" He thundered, backing up as Ryuji charged at him, Ranma firing on the other guard.

"How dare-?" Ann growled, pumping the action on the shotgun. "I won't… I won't keep 'putting up' with it." She stepped forward and fired the weapon again, though this time her aim was off, gouging chunks out of the wall next to the robed king as new shadows pulled themselves into existence between him and the angry thieves.

"Gah, not this infinite reinforcement shit again!" Ryuji snarled.

"No easy way out, either," Ranma replied, pulling the trigger of her pistol and being greeted with a soft click. "...And it keeps gettin' better."

Kamoshida chuckled, now safe behind his forces. "Ah, wait, I think I've got an idea!" He said, smiling widely. "Oh Ann dear!"

"What do you want?" The blonde girl spat, glaring.

"I wasn't talking to you," the king sneered as a second girl entered the room, Ann's doppelganger clad only in a fuschia, leopard print, string bikini. "How about you show them how obedient you are? I don't have any more time to deal with these insects."

The new blonde giggled vacuously. "Sure thing, Lord Kamoshida!"

"Ooooh boy…" Ryuji winced.

"You son of a bitch!" Ann yelled, charging forward, right past Ranma as the redhead let out a bolt of dark energy at a nearby shadow. She fired her shotgun again as she broke past Ryuji, trying to clear a path to the retreating king.

"Oh no you don't!" Suddenly, she felt something close around her leg, tugging.

She twisted as she fell, managing to catch sight of what had caught her, a long red leather whip, held in the hand of her copy. The other was looking a lot less like her now, though. For one, she didn't have wings or horns. "What the hell?"

"You heard Lord Kamoshida!" The demon girl chirped, her voice having gained a slight reverb since she'd spoken last.

Ann stumbled to her feet, the whip falling free, but her opponent leapt into the air, flapping her leathery wings once in order to put herself between the girl and the door. "Out of my way!" Ann roared, raising the shotgun and pulled the trigger, and was met with a harmless click as it didn't fire. Frustrated, she pitched the useless weapon at her opponent, who contemptuously batted it aside.

"I almost feel ashamed to be based off of you," the shadow chuckled, smiling condescendingly at her.

"No one's gunna stop me now!" Ann's voice sounded almost as much like a scream as a yell. She slammed into the other woman with a fairly well executed shoulder check, blue light seeming to gather around her body.

"Wait, is that…" Ryuji asked, disbelieving.

"That's amazing!" Morgana exclaimed, as one of his persona's gusts of wind slammed a shadow against a wall.

"Get out of my way!" With each word, Ann struck her opponent, slamming her against the door. With each word, Ranma could see pained spasms in the blonde's own limbs.

"Remind me never ta piss her off," the redhead muttered, as a red mask appeared over the upper half of Ann's face, and she did her level best not to compare it to the face of a cat. Half a second later, a blast of blue light flung the girl's double straight through the doors.

"Beautiful…" Morgana whispered, Ann's body being enveloped in light as she reached with a single hand and tore her mask off by the cat ear. Behind her, a lady persona appeared, clad in a red and black spanish dress. Around her waist was a belt of roses, with two thorny vines extending out and wrapped around two tux wearing servants, head's trapped in pink, heart shaped, metal masks. Her boots and corset had a similar motif, black with red hearts all over them. Her pink skinned head was adorned with a black and fuschia leopard mask, twin drills of black hair coming out the back and smug yellow eyes glaring out the front. And to top it all off, she was smoking a god damned cigar.

"Not the word I'd use," Ranma muttered. "The heck is that?"

"It's all over the place, visually," Ryuji noted.

Ann, now wearing a red leather catsuit complete with three seperate zippers and a red tail attachment, didn't respond to any of their comments, walking calmly through the door she'd blown open. "Carmen, let's go."

"So I guess it's a Carmen," Ranma offered, having d'Éon blast one of the last shadows in the room before running after her.

By the time she got out into the hall, Ann's persona was flinging fireballs at her double, who had seemed to recover. Strangely the fireballs her persona was throwing weren't having much effect. Ranma, catching up, joined in with her own spell, but it just rippled against the creature's body and vanished with absolutely no effect. "What the?" She complained, irritably.

"It's resistant to that type of magic attack!" Morgana yelled. "Try something else!"

"I don't got anything else!" Ranma yelled back. "The gun's outta ammo."

"What about that other persona thing?" Ann asked, stumbling out of the way as her counterpart launched a fireball of its own.

"Oh yeah, that, how do I…" the pigtailed girl started, before something clicked in her mind. As it did, she stumbled a bit, and she felt something shift in the mask over her eyes. Everything felt off somehow, but she couldn't figure out why. Shrugging it off, she reached up and removed the mask, blinking at the steel blue butterfly-winged thing she held in her hand rather than the usual ornate silver. Without any time to think about it, she stretched out one arm and hoped for the best. Obliging her request, the Pixie she'd talked to earlier appeared flying past her and fired a lightning bolt.

"Hey, that's my trick!" Ryuji objected as he joined in on the attack. "Captain Kidd!"

"Seriously?" Morgana huffed.

"Can we just stop arguing and kill this bitch already?" Ann demanded.

"Of course, lady Ann!" Morgana exclaimed.

Ranma just rolled her eyes, firing off another lightning blast. A couple more attacks later and the double vanished, screaming "Lord Kamoshida!" as it faded away.

Ann slumped forward, panting for breath as the rest of the group gathered around her. "That was pretty intense," Ryuji offered. "You okay?"

"Yeah," the girl said, trying to get her breath back. "I'm fine. I just… wow, this persona thing feels amazing! I feel so strong now."

"Well ya look like you're gunna fall over," Ranma countered. "I think we've made enough of a disturbance."

"Yeah, let's keep going," Ann nodded.

"Not what I meant," Ranma disagreed. "Kamoshida got away and he's probably callin' every guard in the place to get between us and him. Time to go."

"What? No!" Ann yelled, trying to straighten up. "I have to… We have to…"

Ryuji rested a hand on the blonde girl's shoulder. "Ann, it's okay. We're gunna get the bastard. Just not today, alright?"

"Y-yeah," Ann sighed, her shoulders slumping. "You guys are probably right."

The group made their way back to Kamoshida's 'worship' room to pick up the shotgun Ann had dropped, though before they left, she stopped, bending and picking something up off the floor.

"What's that?" Morgana asked.

Ann just responded by lashing out with the whip the double had used before, three rapid cracks splitting the air.

"That was actually pretty good," Ranma admitted. "You train animals or something?"

"No," the girl shook her head slowly. "I just thought I could use it, and I can. No idea why."

"That's not weird or anything," Ryuji muttered. "Might have to do with your persona being some weird dominatrix."

"Let's just get outta here before the guards get up enough guts to come back," Ranma ordered, turning for the door.

HR.

"Alright, I'm not going to stay in this dump for another day," Morgana whined as he looked with a turned up nose at his surroundings, now a normal looking cat. They were all back in the alleyway outside of Shujin Academy after escaping from the palace.

Ranma looked up from where she was double checking that Ann's number had made it onto her phone. "Yeah, I guess now we're working with you we should probably help with that," she admitted, reluctantly. "I actually wouldn't mind, but I'm kinda in a weird position with my caretaker right now. Showin' up with a new pet might not be the best idea."

"I don't think my Mom would appreciate me bringing home a cat or any pet for that matter." Ryuji stated, bringing a hand up to his chin. "I tried to bring a dog in once, and that ended pretty bad."

The cat turned his head to look at Ann, eyes growing wider and wider in hope.

"I… guess I could?" The blonde girl said, slowly. "At least for a while. My parents won't be back for a while and my caretakers are pretty easy going."

"Yes! That would be great!" Morgana yelled enthusiastically.

"This probably won't be a permanent thing," the girl warned.

"I can ask Sakura-san about it later," Ranma nodded. "Just… gimme some time."

"Sure, whatever," Morgana waved his paw. "We'll have to meet up again tomorrow to plan out the rest of the heist. Oh! And to pick out nicknames!"

"Yeah, that's definitely the most important part," Ryuji said sarcastically. "I'll see you guys then. Gotta track down another toy gun or somethin' anyway."

"Can ya find one you can reload?" Ranma asked, glaring down at the pistol she'd been using. "The lack of ammo's a real problem."

"That's… pretty illegal," the other boy said, slowly. "Maybe I can get another one so you can carry two, though."

"It'll do," Ranma nodded. "See you guys tomorrow."

The other two humans nodded before Ann opened her bag and gestured for Morgana to get in it, and the group went their separate ways.

HR.

"I'm back," Ranma called as he entered the cafe. He'd dipped into a bathroom at the train station to finally snag some hot water. Glancing at Sojiro in his usual place, where he was scowling a little more than usual, he asked, "Somethin' up?"

The older man just raised one hand and pointed sideways at the rearmost booth, which appeared to be covered in papers, a familiar looking frizzy head working over them. "Ms. Kawakami?" Ranma asked, walking over and looking down at what appeared to be a whole bunch of japanese tests.

"Oh hello Saotome-kun," the teacher said casually.

"Uh… why are you here?" Ranma asked bluntly.

"Well, I said I might visit this place," the woman explained. "It's really quiet here. Perfect place to get my grading done."

"That's good, I guess?" Ranma questioned as the teacher glanced at her watch and began packing up her papers.

"Saotome-kun, would you mind grabbing some of those?" She asked, and Ranma spent the next few moments helping her pack up. As she zipped up her bag and threw it over her shoulder, she turned to him. "I'll see you in class on monday. And Oh, Saotome-kun?"

"Yeah?" He replied, as the frizzy haired woman walked towards the door.

"Don't call me 'Teach.'" The smile she gave him with that statement promised some kind of punishment if he ever did again. A moment later the entry bell clinked as the door closed behind her.

"What was that about?" Ranma asked, heading over to the counter.

"I dunno," Sojiro sighed explosively. "But whatever it was, it took three hours, one of my tables, and a single cup of coffee. She didn't even order curry."

"Uh...huh." Ranma said awkwardly.

HR.

4/16

Made another friend, bit too into cats. Kawakami's got odd taste in revenge. Remember: Buy a thermos. New job ?

END.

For the description of Carmen. Yes, this paragraph is awkward. Carmen's just that cluttered a design, though. Poor JSB spent about twenty minutes picking stuff out and writing it. Ryuji and Ranma... might have been sorta author mouthpieces there, sorry. Not sorry.


End file.
